Sarah Palin Drives the Republicans

The rebellious right-wing populist movement driven by Sarah Palin has grown into a wave so powerful that neither Democrats nor Republicans know exactly what to do with it.

He’s young, has an attractive wife and adorable children, he’s an outstanding speaker, his audience is a significant minority population in the United States — and his name isn’t Barack Obama. Marco Rubio is being celebrated as the conservative answer to America’s first African-American president and he was just elected as one of Florida’s senators. The son of Cuban refugees, fluent in Spanish, personifies the real power of the Tea Party. That sometimes reactionary and often anarchic protest movement that exists without central leadership and profits from unemployment and dissatisfaction with “big government” supports not only Marco Rubio but also the Libertarian Rand Paul, one of Kentucky’s newly elected senators.

Rubio and Paul will become the first Tea Party representatives in the U.S. Senate. The 47-year-old Paul has no previous political experience and had gained some notoriety with his criticism of the anti-discrimination legislation of the 1960s. He questioned the law barring a restaurant owner from refusing to serve African-Americans. His father, Ron Paul, is also well known for his two unsuccessful runs for the presidency advocating radical market freedom.

About half of the candidates supported by the Tea Party were successful in their quest for seats in the Senate, House and state capitols. Sarah Palin, the conservative icon of the protest against Obama’s policies, actively campaigned for Paul. She also supported Nikki Haley, the 38-year-old daughter of immigrants from India, who was elected governor of South Carolina, the first female Asian-American governor of a state. Palin did not actively campaign for Rubio in Florida, on the other hand, so it is likely both states would have gone Republican without Tea Party involvement.

Palin, who quit her job as governor in July 2009 and who only functions as a perennial whip for the Tea Party, is accused of having power with no responsibility. The limits of her personal power were also made apparent Tuesday.

Triumph and defeat are close neighbors in the populist tea party. While Republicans suffered mainly due to the overwhelmingly negative image of George W. Bush’s presidency and the Wall Street crash, they would not have done so well had it not been for the energy generated by the Tea Party protest movement. But the GOP’s taste for tea alienated Republican moderates and resulted in the loss of Senate seats considered safely Republican, so it wasn’t just Barack Obama who had to swallow some bitter electoral medicine. The second biggest loser in this election was Sarah Palin. Obama and Palin both currently appeal only to minorities in their respective parties. Both actively supported candidates who lost, perhaps because of that support.

Palin supported Joe Miller in his run for the Senate from the state of Alaska and he beat the Republican incumbent, Lisa Murkowski in the primaries. Murkowski then ran as a write-in candidate. While final results are not yet in, it appears she will beat both Miller and the Democratic candidate, Scott McAdams, in the general election.

But the Tea Party will continue to set the pace for the Republicans. Despite some spectacular wins in the midterm elections, the renewal of this conservative party has only just begun. The potential candidates for the presidency in 2012, a group that includes the new superstar Marco Rubio, will decide whether or not the strategy of just saying “no” to Obama will result in concrete policy changes.