{"id":389685,"date":"2010-03-04T02:15:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T07:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12168"},"modified":"2010-03-09T13:55:23","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T18:55:23","slug":"republic-of-tea-what-do-the-texas-primaries-say-about-the-tea-party-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/389685","title":{"rendered":"Republic of Tea: What do the Texas primaries say about the Tea Party cause?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/images\/sitepieces\/tx_tea_nonfeat.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"tx_tea_nonfeat.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/tx_tea_nonfeat-thumb-250x272.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;\" height=\"272\" width=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/span>It&#8217;s been about a year since the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tea_Party_movement\">Tea Party phenomenon<\/a> erupted on the political scene, primed by right-wing pundit anger and becoming a household word after they pulled off Tax Day protests last April in over 300 cities.<\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4b9008624e989b23\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" style=\"border: 0pt none ;\" height=\"16\" width=\"125\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4b9008624e989b23\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<p>This week, the Tea cause got its first big political test in Texas: In a state that&#8217;s proved fertile ground for conservative protests, several Tea-aligned candidates threw their hats into the ring to challenge Republicans across the state in Tuesday&#8217;s primaries.<\/p>\n<p>So what happened in Texas? And does it tell us about the state of Tea Party politics in America?<\/p>\n<p>First, the returns. The news headlines have been unforgiving: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/disp\/story.mpl\/metropolitan\/6896043.html\">Lackluster Showing Dampens Tea Party<\/a>&#8221; (Houston Chronicle), &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/stltoday\/news\/stories.nsf\/nation\/story\/7ED45FD3C13A3A29862576DC00098829?OpenDocument\">Tea Party Fizzles<\/a>&#8221; (Hearst Newspapers).<\/p>\n<p>And going by pure win\/loss percentage, Texas Tea partiers may have little to celebrate. They can claim at most <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/disp\/story.mpl\/metropolitan\/6896043.html\">three victories<\/a>: Roy Morales, who won the GOP nod for the 29th Congressional district, centered around Houston; Don Summers, who bumped off the incumbent Harris County tax assessor\/collector; and David Simpson, who took out State Rep. Tommy Merrit of Longview.<\/p>\n<p>But the most interesting and indicative campaign was that of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.medinafortexas.com\/\">Debra Medina<\/a>, the Tea-favored candidate for governor. As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/ap\/article\/ALeqM5h1U6DtmaB1VEMjnpRNMXZRBMiunQD9E7LH9G0\">the AP notes<\/a>, she was hardly the ideal candidate: short on money, low on name recognition in a race challenging an incumbent governor and sitting U.S. Senator. Medina even lost Tea Party votes for saying the U.S. government may have been involved in 9\/11.<\/p>\n<p>Medina ended up <a href=\"http:\/\/enr.sos.state.tx.us\/enr\/results\/mar02_148_race22.htm?x=0&amp;y=478&amp;id=78\">winning 18.5% of the Republican primary vote<\/a>, which you can view one of two ways. <\/p>\n<p>The positive spin: Given all the negatives Medina&#8217;s campaign faced, for an upstart protest candidate to get nearly one out of five GOP votes was a major accomplishment. It&#8217;s close to the <a href=\"http:\/\/dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com\/archives\/2010\/03\/texas-tea-party.html\">20% threshold<\/a> one Texas political observer said would allow Tea partiers to declare success.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, at a time when anti-incumbent sentiment is at a rolling boil, it says something that <a href=\"http:\/\/enr.sos.state.tx.us\/enr\/results\/mar02_148_race22.htm?x=0&amp;y=9199&amp;id=39\">Medina didn&#8217;t win a single Texas county<\/a> &#8212; not even her current home of Wharton County, where she became GOP chair in 2004, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.co.bee.tx.us\/ips\/cms\">Bee County<\/a>, where she was born and raised. And if Medina could only get 18.5% among Republicans in the primary, how bad would she do in a general election?<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, Medina is a good barometer for how the Tea Party is doing nationally. Not yet a full-blown movement or a well-organized political force, Tea partying remains an appealing attitude and powerful political current for discontented conservatives. And as Texas shows, it can be channeled in different &#8212; and even conflicting &#8212; directions.<\/p>\n<p>But winning isn&#8217;t everything &#8212; especially this early in the game. The Tea Party has already scored a big success in Texas and elsewhere by moving the entire political debate to the right. Medina&#8217;s dark horse campaign forced her competitors, especially a desperate Sen. Hutchison, embrace increasingly conservative positions.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the election returns, Tea partiers continue to have a big impact on public attitudes. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whnt.com\/news\/sns-ap-tn--teaparty-poll,0,4853185.story\">a recent poll in Tennessee<\/a>, 9% of the general population &#8212; not just Republicans &#8212; said they were &#8220;active&#8221; in the Tea Party effort, and 29% had a favorable view of it.<\/p>\n<p>They also remain a political player, as the state GOP in South Carolina &#8212; one of the safer states to be a Republican &#8212; has learned in a series of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wfae.org\/wfae\/1_87_316.cfm?action=display&amp;id=5905\">widely-publicized negotiations<\/a> to keep Tea Party activists in the party fold.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s are two final reasons why the Tea Party cause will continue to exert influence far beyond its numbers: visibility and money. <\/p>\n<p>Thanks to TV and radio personalities like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_most-listened-to_radio_programs\">Rush Limbaugh<\/a> (20+ million listeners) and Glenn Beck (3+ million TV audience, 9+ million radio), Tea Party activists will always have a champion and voice (unlike protesters and political challengers on the left).<\/p>\n<p>As for money, let&#8217;s just say that the handful of men who <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boston_Tea_Party\">dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in 1773<\/a> likely didn&#8217;t have the backing of a corporate front group like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity\">Americans for Prosperity<\/a> (2006 income: $4.2 million).<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the surface-level conflicts between the rough-edged Tea partiers in their smoother conservative cousins, as long as they have a big media megaphone and a basic commitment to protecting the interests of the wealthy, they&#8217;ll remain a political force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been about a year since the Tea Party phenomenon erupted on the political scene, primed by right-wing pundit anger and becoming a household word after they pulled off Tax Day protests last April in over 300 cities. This week, the Tea cause got its first big political test in Texas: In a state that&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}