The Effect The Tea Parties Have On American Politics

Part 1: The Lessons of Tea Party Super Tuesday

by Robert Tracinski

The one big thing everyone wants to know about Tuesday night's primaries is: what about the Tea Parties? What effect are they having on the actual outcome of political races?

There are some political spin-masters who have been trying to present this year's elections in terms of an "anti-incumbent" sentiment, but being "anti-incumbent" is a non-essential, and those who raise this issue are largely using it as a smokescreen. What they're trying to obscure is the role of political ideas. They don't want us asking: why are voters against these particular incumbents at this particular time? Why do they support the incumbent in some races, even while they reject the incumbent in others?

For example, why did Arkansas voters support incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary last night—even while this very same incumbent is 20 points behind in the polls going into the general election against a Republican challenger?

The answer, of course, is that this year's big political trend has been clearly ideological: the Tea Parties are driven by opposition to the runaway growth in the size and power of government. Those who join the Tea Party movement or sympathize with it generally believe in the ideas of individual rights and constitutionally limited government. But the question is: how big an effect is this movement actually having at the polls?

The results, as I expected, are mixed. They show that the Tea Parties are a political movement, but not a fully fledged political organization—and that limits their impact. For better and for worse—mostly for better—Tea Party organizers and supporters are not practiced political operatives, and they have a lot of learning to do. Tuesday was their primary school. Let's take a look at the lessons.

Let's begin simply by surveying the results.

The best news for the Tea Parties was in Nevada, where Sharron Angle won the Republican nomination to face Majority Leader Harry Reid in November's Senate race. Support from national Tea Party groups was central in helping Angle move up from relative obscurity to defeat the establishment-backed candidate in a three-way race.

Angle and the Tea Party Express, whose April 15 Tax Day endorsement rocketed her from 5 percent support in opinion polls to her shocking primary victory, dismissed arguments she can't beat Reid, saying critics called the GOP icon and late President Ronald Reagan too conservative, as well….

"There's no such thing" as too conservative, Angle said after evoking Reagan. "We want to take our country back to those constitutional principles."…

Angle could not have won without outside help. The Tea Party Express spent nearly $600,000 for her on TV ads and the anti-tax Club for Growth pitched in more than another $600,000—spending as much as the candidate herself. The Tea Party Express said it would spend at least $1 million to try to defeat Reid and the Club for Growth is expected to match that and likely spend even more.

The Tea Parties can also claim another victory in the South Carolina Republican primary for governor. Nikki Haley won just shy of 50% of the vote in a four-way race and heads into a run-off two weeks from now, where she is expected to win against the second-place challenger, who got only 22 percent of the vote. Haley was pushed into the lead by endorsements from Sarah Palin and Jenny Sanford (ex-wife of disgraced outgoing governor Mark Sanford), while her chief opponent, a Republican congressman, was rejected because of his vote in favor of the TARP bailout in 2008.

New Jersey is more of a mixed bag. TIA Daily reader and Tea Party organizer Mark Kalinowski sent me a thorough report.

"Of the six candidates who participated in the May 17th forum [which Mark organized and I moderated—see my comments on the event], two won their primaries easily, as expected: Roland Straten (NJ-8) and Michael Agosta (NJ-9).

"Roland won with over 80% of the vote. Roland had the support of some local tea party groups, including the North New Jersey Tea Party Group (my group) and the Essex County Tea Party Coalition. Roland also had party backing (if you can call it that—let's just say the party tends to essentially ignore Republican candidates in Democrat-leaning districts).

"As for Michael Agosta, he had party backing, which helped him achieve 58% of the vote in a three-way race. To the best of my knowledge, none of the three candidates seeking the Republican nomination in Democrat-leaning NJ-9 had the announced support of any tea party organization, although my guess is that the North New Jersey Tea Party Group's promotion of Michael via his involvement with the May 17th forum helped him to some extent.

"The most exciting part of the evening: as of this writing, with 99% of precincts reporting in NJ-6, Anna Little is exactly 95 votes ahead of the party-backed candidate, millionaire publisher Diane Gooch (6,674 vs. 6,579). [The lead is now 61 votes, 6,730 to 6,669.] So there might be a third winner from the forum, as well. If this happens, it will definitely mean the Tea Party movement in New Jersey succeeded better than general expectations. Anna was a decided underdog—frankly, if I had to guess beforehand, I thought she would get less than a third of the vote. Win or lose, she did better than expected, and the largest factor behind this was vocal tea party support.

"Although forum participate David Corsi (NJ-12) lost, the losing margin—46% for Corsi, 54% for party-backed millionaire Scott Sipprelle—was much, much closer than I would have anticipated. So this closer-than-expected result also showed strength from New Jersey's Tea Party movement.

"All seven incumbents seeking their party's nomination won, including three cap-and-tax Republicans (LoBiondo in NJ-2, Smith in NJ-4, and Lance in NJ-7).

"Forum participant Justin Murphy lost the NJ-3 primary with 40% of the vote to former Philadelphia Eagle Jon Runyan's 60%. While Murphy had the backing of at least two or three Tea Party organizations, it should be noted that Runyan did earn the endorsement of the Independence Hall Tea Party Association, an influential Tea Party group based out of metropolitan Philadelphia and involved in three states (NJ, PA, and DE). Clearly, Runyan's deep pockets, local fame, and party backing played meaningful roles in his victory. Frankly, I'm surprised that Murphy attained as much as 40% of the vote.

"Forum participant Lon Hosford garnered less than 10% of the vote in NJ-7, in a four-way race won by the Republican incumbent (and cap-and-taxer) with 56% of the vote.

"Tea party-backed Alan Bateman lost the NJ-4 Republican primary to a cap-and-taxer, 31%-69%. Clearly, cap-and-tax is not considered by the electorate to be nearly as important as ObamaCare.

"Republican incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen (who was one of only two of 13 House members from New Jersey to vote "no" on both cap-and-tax and ObamaCare) won his primary with over 75% of the vote against the president of the state's largest tea party organization (The Morristown Tea Party), Rich Luzzi.

"All in all, some wins, some losses, but a better-than-expected result, and particularly so if Anna Little holds on to her slim lead and emerges the victor in the NJ-6 Republican primary."

The Tea Party factor is not as big in California. There was some talk of the Tea Parties causing a last minute surge of support for Republican Chuck Devore in the California Senate primary, but it was unclear that he was more of a small-government candidate than the winner, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. And to my knowledge, the Tea Parties weren't a factor either in former EBay CEO Meg Whitman's victory in the Republican primary for governor. And besides, I think most Tea Partiers have the sense to hold different standards for what they expect from left-leaning "blue states" like Massachusetts, California, and Illinois. We know that Scott Brown will be a wishy-washy moderate, but he will be a lot better than Ted Kennedy. Same for Fiorina versus Barbara Boxer.

Finally, the results in Virginia are perhaps least promising for the Tea Party movement. In Virginia's second district, the nomination was won by establishment-backed candidate Scott Rigell. But my memory from the second district candidates' forum that I moderated (see my comments here) is that he was not the best of the candidates, but he did not conspicuously stand out as a wish-washy moderate.

The worst news is from Virginia's fifth district, where the establishment candidate won, despite his 2004 vote in favor of a big state tax hike, and despite initially snubbing the Tea Party movement. It's very clear that in VA-5, the Tea Party vote was hopelessly split. It's not just that Hurt won with less than half the vote (48%), and without carrying many of the counties outside of his base of support in the Southern end of the district—all of which implies that there were enough anti-establishment votes to defeat him, if they had all gone to one candidate. Add to that the fact that, if the Tea Parties had settled on a single challenger to Hurt, the challenger would have gotten much more publicity and much more money, and he might have done even better. Now Hurt will face another challenge from an independent candidate who claims Tea Party backing—potentially splitting the right's vote and getting the Demcractic incumbent re-elected in November.

There are some more subtle and hopeful trends to be noticed from the election results. In Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln won the Democratic primary for the race to keep her Senate seat. Why is that good news? Because she defeated a challenge from her Party's left wing, a candidate supported by Daily Kos and the other leftist "nutroots," and by $10 million from the labor unions. Now even sources in the White House are complaining that "organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet." Given the style of expression, that's probably Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

And as Michael Barone points out, even when incumbents and establishment candidates won, they did so by much lower margins than they are used to. For example, Senator Lincoln won 83% of the vote in her last primary, but only 52% in this one.

I am put in mind of the story of the Teamsters Union business agent who was confined to the hospital. A bouquet was sent, with a note reading: “The Executive Board wishes you a speedy recovery, by a vote of nine to six.” Such was the voters’ verdict on incumbents on June 8.

Barone also points out that Republican turnout in the primaries is way above normal, a key indicator of greater enthusiasm on the right in this election year.

Now let us sum up the big lessons for the Tea Party movement—and some of the reforms we may need to institute to increase the ability of insurgent and grassroots candidates to overcome the resistance of the establishment.

This article will be concluded in the next edition of TIA Daily.

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Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal"