By Peter Galuszka
Whatever happened to the Tea Party movement?
The other day I found my laminated plastic media credential for the Virginia Tea Party PATRIOTS CONVENTION that happened about this time two years ago at Richmond’s convention center.
I was overcome with nostalgia. It was such a fun group: Patrick Henry re-enactors, Jamie Radtke, gun nuts with Glock pistols, Libertarians, Corey A. Stewart in a lonely booth bashing immigrants and even our very own Very Rev. James A. Bacon Jr. preaching about runaway federal spending.
Back then, they packed a wallop. The succeeded in getting enough hard right politicians elected that they took the House of Representatives, the Virginia House of Delegates and almost took the U.S. and state Senates.
But now, in the word of Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, the right’s neoconservative wing is facing a total rout. Abandoning them, Mitt Romney is praising Barack Obama’s foreign policy initiatives. Romney doesn’t “want another Iraq.” Paul Ryan’s Ayn Randism is nowhere in evidence. Where’s the “Power of Selfishness?” Whatever happened to Main Street Republican Eric Cantor trying to run the lead the Tea Party parade? Now Obama is back talking about a “Grand Bargain” on debt that might have been possible had Young Gun Eric not gotten in the way with his oversized ego.
According to Dionne: “The biggest sign that tea party thinking is dead is Romney’s straight-out deception about his past position on the rescue of the auto industry.” Tea Baggers conjured up “Obama the Socialist” on this one. Turns out the bailout worked. So much for free-market fundamentalism.
Dionne notes that this is all related to the fact that the election comes down to undecided voters in swing states, like Ohio and Virginia. Despite what you may read on this blog, most voters don’t want the rich to get special tax breaks and don’t want their Medicare and Social Security cut or replaced with some hoary scheme to prop up Big Insurance with a voucher system.
It could be that Romney will scurry back to the straight-no-chaser version of conservatism if he wins. But having read more about what he did in Massachusetts, I really don’t know where is is or was. He used to sound like Obama before Obama became Obama.
But if you want a thermometer check, all you have to do is read Bacon’s Rebellion. Remember all those dire, clarion calls about deficit spending? How big, bad and awful, the federal (but not state) government is? Now we get recycled press releases from the Governor’s office about how universities can help recruit corporations.
The Tea Party exists, I guess. But their Websites haven’t changed since early 2010. Too bad they took ownership of that cool rattlesnake flag. I really liked it but if I a license plate with one for me car, people will get the wrong idea.
