PHILLIPS: The tea party didn’t lose — it was hijacked!

washington Times ^ | Wednesday, May 21, 2014 | Judson Phillips

[LS]

I disagree with the premise. The Tea Party dealt itself numerable wounds, from nominating bad candidates to failing (at the local level) to govern efficiently when it had control. But the two biggest weaknesses of the Tea Party were evident three years ago.

First, it tried too hard to incorporate Democrats as identify itself as "not" a Republican group. No one ever believed this on either side, but this led the organizations to strongly de-emphasize social issues and thought that it could ween Dems away purely on economic issues. This was just bad judgment.

But something that the Tea Party could not do anything about was its age. In every meeting I went to over the course of there years, the average age was about 50. There was never a sufficient number of young, energetic people to keep the movement's momentum going.

I started to see the numbers fall fairly significantly in the talks I was giving in 2011, even with a presidential election on the horizon.

Today, I've been talking to a few, but more important I've been trying to arrange a national film tour for my movie, so I thought I'd contact the Tea Parties. State by state, list by list, the groups I've contacted are defunct, or their leaders tell me they only have a very small number of people. One big Dayton area group I spoke to, which had over 100 in attendance in 2010, had half that a year later, and now the leader tells me that he's lucky to get 30. The only issue, he said, that drew people out was "Common Core." Even then, there still are no young people associated with the movement.

So while the Establishment has definitely opposed the Tea Party and sought its demise, the Tea Party did quite enough to bury itself.

[TomGuy]

some groups can try to use this movement for their benefit.

It is similar to those candidates who run as conservatives and govern as centrists/leftists.

Politicians pander to whomever they think will help their election chances.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Get real. If it wasn’t for the Tea Party, the Republican Party would have already gone by the way of the Whigs. Who do you think gave the Republicans the House majority in 2010? It damn sure wasn’t Karl Rove.

[Bikkuri]

I saw this coming (and it was discussed here many times) when we showed how we could start the ball rolling to take our Republic back...

[SoConPubbie]

So while the Establishment has definitely opposed the Tea Party and sought its demise, the Tea Party did quite enough to bury itself.

You are talking in the past-tense.

Do you believe the Tea-Party is dead like the Democrats and the Liberal, traitorous, Democrat Collaborating GOP-E wants you to believe?

[SoConPubbie]

So now that teaparty failed, they are all mad. Well boo hoo, the republicans were here first.

So you think political losses will stop the millions of conservatives that identify as Tea-Party members will now just roll over and submit to the treachery, Democrat-Collaborating and Corporate Cronyism of the GOP-E?

[SoConPubbie]

So now that teaparty failed, they are all mad. Well boo hoo, the republicans were here first.

How do you explain the massive wins by Tea-Party candidates at the state-level?

You do realize that the tea-party is destroying the GOP-E by doing this right?

[Impy]

Tea Party Express isn’t an establishment group, they’re a Paulbot group.

[LS]

I think it’s on life support, based on the meetings I see, speak to, and the leaders I’ve contacted.