I would have thought the TP would have peaked by now, but, at least according to this (openly hostile) analysis, they have plans, energy and funding going into the 2014 primary season. Meanwhile, the “plutocrats” are also spending desperately to keep control of the GOP and avoid its defeat in November.
Hopefully, the role of retiring in massive disgrace.
I see their role as comic relief, mostly. They will score some upsets in nominations and that will cost the Republicans a few seats in both chambers. At somepoint, the business class will figure out that the Teanuts aren’t going to vote for the Democrat in any event, so they’ll pay a little lip service to hating abortion and Obamacare and loving guns to death but other than that they’ll take the party back from the whack-a-doodles.
But, can they?
I believe they can, they just need to get some deep pockets to spend big on negative ads against the tea guys in primaries.
Does anyone realize the strangeness of rooting for the big corporations over regular folks, no matter how whack a doodle you think they might be? I just can’t understand the motivation for that.
The Bush/Delay/K street GOP was a disaster for this country. The worst you can say about the Tea Party is that they don’t allow things to be done except through a painful process akin to a root canal, and at the state level some of the Tea Party governors have actually done pretty well.
It’s a nutcase movement to be sure, but if it matures it could be a positive thing. Much better than having the business elites running things. And in the meantime, it means Democrats win! So what exactly is the problem here?
That’s what they had been doing for decades and what led to this revolt in the first place.
We are rooting for corporations over insane racist sexist homophobic science hating idiots, what is so strange about that?
Well, I guess that’s fair. We root for corporations to control the Democratic party instead of socialist America-hating, Constitution-hating, zero population growth advocates.
Perhaps that’s why corporations control BOTH parties. Each side is rooting for business’s success in the other party.
adaher, I almost agree with your point, but really it’s just a testament to how insane the tea party is. The tea party could have been a great thing, but of course it was backed by people with deep pockets and only now are those people realizing that the tea party is not to be controlled by them.
For the good of the country, I’m rooting for the death of the Republican Party. This will likely be facilitated by having a significant number of Republican incumbents succesfully primaried by tea party candidates who go on to lose in the general election.
It is merely a happy coincidence that this outcome involves the Koch brothers spending millions of dollars and getting NOTHING. 
The Republican Party is dead. The Tea Party has replaced it.
Look, 40% of Americans are conservative. Whether you like it or not, one of the major parties, often both major parties, will be conservative parties.
Especially around election time, when the Democrats do their best to sound like Reagan Republicans.
I don’t think anyone here will dispute that (even though I’ve read a lot of spew over the last decade about how we’re REALLY 90% conservative).
However, the Tea Party is not conservative, it’s bugfuck nuts.
American politics has a center, which slowly shifts around over time but not by as much as many would try to make others believe. Our successful eras are those when we have a plenitude of reasonably balanced viewpoints across that center. Our shameful eras come when one side or the other is dragged to extremes, forcing the other side to extremes, and the notion of a center is lost.
Time for the Tea Party bullshitters and whiners to fuck off and let a real conservative faction have a voice. I think (hope) they may as well show up at the convention in clown suits. The baggy pants will fit over their Depends just fine, and the big shoes won’t pinch their corns. Just be careful not to catch all the ruffles in the scooter wheels.
That depends. Are any of the Tea Partiers witches?
Well, actually, the Tea Partiers, they ain’t exactly regular folks. It’s really a(nother) party of business elites – local as opposed to national.
Weellll . . . Study the 2011 Pew Political Typology; it’s not that simple.
The Tea Party will lead a valiant, Populist cavalry charge–away from good, rational Government & a better America.
The K Street GOP will lead a valiant, Corruptionist cavalry charge–away from good, honest Government & a better America.
And, OG he’p us, the Democratic Party will lead a valiant, cavalry charge–in circles, a unguided missile.
Well, many people dispute that this is a center-right nation.
Let’s test that theory. Have the Democrats run as unabashed progressives. Let Warren and her type steer the ship. Quit with the “We’re the conservative lite party!” every election season.
I don’t see what you think that would prove. Suppose that the USA is in fact exactly “balanced” between the “right” and the “left” (acknowledging that many of those terms are very ill defined). It would still be a winning move for either party to run a very centrist candidate, and a potentially losing move to run a candidate from much further out on the spectrum.
And that’s ignoring the difference between self-identification and actual voting patterns and how people respond to various proposals in a vacuum vs how they respond when they know where the proposal comes from, etc etc etc.