Tea Parties Versus The Two Parties - The Philadelphia Bulletin Archives

How A Non-Party Wins The Hearts Of Independent Swing Voters

By John M. O’Hara, For The Bulletin

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

At tea parties and town hall protests over the past year, millions of Americans showed intense dissatisfaction with the current political situation in the United States. One can haggle over how many thousands of people showed up at one event or another, but polls provide the hard data showing the movement is widespread and a force to be reckoned with. This should serve as a wake-up call to incumbent politicians of all stripes.
A recent Rasmussen poll pitted a Republican, Democrat, and hypothetical Tea Party candidate against each other on a generic ballot. The Democrat secured 36 percent of the vote. The Tea Party candidate — representing a party that doesn’t even exist—grabbed 23 percent. The Republican ticket came in third, with 18 percent, and 22 percent were undecided. Unaffiliated voters—the precious “swing vote” — put the Tea Party candidate on top with 33 percent. The undecided were second with 30 percent, Democrats grabbed 25 percent, and Republicans were dead last with only 12 percent.
Similarly, in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the tea party movement had higher favorability ratings than both the Republican and Democrat parties. Only the tea parties came out with a net positive rating: 41 percent positive and 23 percent negative. Democrats and Republicans — with each party possessing a vast infrastructure, enormous fundraising capacity, and multi-generational history and name recognition — had net negative ratings, 35 percent to 45 percent and 28 percent to 43 percent, respectively.
There is no shortage of signals indicating a broad dissatisfaction with the political status quo. As Karl Rove recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal  (Dec. 16, 2009, “The President is No B+”), the president “has won a place in history with the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year: 49 percent approve and 46 percent disapprove of his job performance in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.” A new Rasmussen poll reports that a plurality — 38 percent — of individuals believe the government’s stimulus spending has actually hurt the economy instead of helping it.

Given this widespread political discontent, people are looking for answers beyond what the two major parties have been offering. That does not mean, however, that a new political party will come into being, or should. The tea party movement can serve as a powerful force to keep politicians in check and ensure the election of fiscally responsible constitutionalists. Consider, for example, the recent election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district. Grassroots activists forced out the liberal, GOP establishment-backed Dede Scozzafava and compelled the party to rally behind Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
Mr. Hoffman lost, but he didn’t have to. He captured more than 45 percent of the vote, fewer than 4,000 votes shy of Democrat victor Bill Owens. Ms. Scozzafava got just over 8,500 votes, compared with nearly 70,000 for Mr. Hoffman. Had the establishment backed Mr. Hoffman earlier and pushed Ms. Scozzafava to endorse him, he might very well have won.
NY-23 and the tea party poll numbers are a “teachable moment” for all involved. Tea partiers must recognize that to effect change we can all believe in, we must work within the political process. As all these numbers indicate, the movement has real potential to have an impact, and we don’t have to let any party establishment steal the reins.
My advice to my fellow tea party members is this: Work within the current political structure and make it work for you. Support candidates you really believe in, starting with primary contests, and consider running for office yourself.
Activists in Nevada have done just that. By winning multiple precinct committee posts, tea party activists have taken over the state GOP.
The second lesson is for Republicans and Democrats. Like the car companies many of them voted to bail out, their brands ain’t what they used to be. For politicians to stand behind their party name is not only insufficient but perilous without a principled foundation and the support of constituents who demand it.
John O’Hara (johara@heartland.org) is assistant director of communications for The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank based in Chicago, Ill. He is author of A New American Tea Party (Wiley), a book detailing the history and principles of the tea party movement, available this January.

Tea Parties Versus The Two Parties - The Philadelphia Bulletin Archives