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Isenstadt: Tea Party Movement's Campaign Gets Media but Few Votes

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | March 8, 2010 at 06:17 am

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The early results from tea party candidates, despite their focus on hot-button issues such as opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill and concern about budget-busting policies of both parties, have not been pretty. In Tuesday’s Texas GOP primary, tea party-inspired contenders found themselves blown out in races across the state.

Alex Isenstadt, Political Analyst, March 7, 2010

From last summer's congressional Town Hall meetings to the September March on Washington, the Tea Party movement has seen a growing presence in the media, but some analysts say they have yet to influence voters.

Ballot box success has been, according to political analyst Alex Isenstadt, "elusive, if not entirely non-existent". Isenstadt notes that from Texas to Illinois to upstate New York, poor showings for politicians linked with the Tea Party raised serious questions about the movement's future.

Tuesday's Texas GOP primary was dismal for Tea Party candidates, all of them defeated in races across the state. Nor, says Isenstadt, was this the first such disaster: In last month’s Illinois primary, tea party favorite Patrick Hughes won just 19 percent against GOP Rep. Mark Kirk in the Senate primary.

Gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski, who had aggressively courted Tea Party activists and had had praise heaped on him by websites like RedState.com, finished a distant fifth place in the GOP contest.

Many political analysts and journalists believe rather than electoral success, radical guerrilla-type cultural shake-up will be the key to the Tea Party's national presence. Others feel the Tea Party does not have the numbers it professes, nor does it have the fundraising savvy that would allow for real ballot success.

The main reason seems to be a predictable growing pain of any new political movement. While tea party partisans have proved effective in organizing rallies and protests, they have yet to show they possess the bread-and-butter on-the-ground campaign skills it takes to win races, said Jerry Ray “Tea” Hall, who won less than 5 percent of the vote in his primary campaign against Ralph Hall in Texas.

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Susan Marie Kovalinsky

at 07:24 on March 8th, 2010

I am not sure I am seconding the opinion, but wanted to show how this one analyst viewed it. He of course, does not have the last word.

The_Cynic

at 12:46 on March 8th, 2010

Tuesday's Texas GOP primary was dismal for Tea Party candidates, all of them defeated in races across the state.

Good! Though they should be re-named as the Foxnewsers! Or, better still "Thosewhoshouldhavebeeninthe asylumers.butescaped"