Do they favor any of the four remaining Republican candidates? If not, will they protest vote for someone else?
They’re lining up behind Gingrich. Not necessarily because of anything he’s done or promises to do, but because he’s a hard-nosed, self-righteous dick. His USP is that he’s a churlish asshole who doesn’t care about offending people. He is, in other words, just the kind of person to stand up to the Evil Liberal Media which the Tea Party blames for so many of America’s problems. If Gingrich gets the nod, he’ll probably capture and retain their loyalty fairly easily. However, if he loses, the Tea Party will be conspicuous by their absence. A lot of them would rather cut their own throats before voting for (to quote an avowed Tea Party member and occasional correspondent of mine) “That fucking shiny-haired retread RINO dipshit”.
The Tea Party will either fall in line and vote for the GoP nominee, or they will ensure Obama’s re-election. It is more likely that they will play ball, as Romney is the lesser of two evils from their perspective.
Isn’t Gingrich the Washington-insider type they want to do away with though?
No, he’s the Washington-insider type they say they want to do away with. What, you didn’t think that what the Tea Party says they want has any real resemblance to what they actually want, did you?
Unless there’s a third-party candidacy, and there won’t be, in November the TPers will vote for Romney or stay home. A more interesting question is whether the TP will have any influence in the Congressional elections, like it did in 2010.
Yeah, but, best as I can tell, they’re willing to overook that for two reasons:
A). Gingrich, for his sins, isn’t MittensRINObamacare.
B). He’s got the “right attitude”, and proves it by being rude about Obama and the Evil Liberal Media every chance he gets. Despite being primarily comprised of middle-class American whites - traditionally the most spoilt and overindulged demographic on the planet - Tea Partiers love to think of themselves as an oppressed minority. The last thing they want is a diplomat. Every time Gingrich steps up to a debate podium and acts like the Pilsbury Doughboy’s dickish little brother, his approval rating among the GOP base actually goes up. In other words, the main thing which, to us, makes Gingrich unelectable - his personality - is actually his great USP among the true believing 20%.
Romney at least has the fig leaf that the plan he implemented was at the state level, not federal. Gingrich’s proposed federal health care plan, though, was pretty much exactly what we ended up with from Obama.
Well, I’m certainly not up to date on everything that might be going on with the Tea Partry, but I would have thought that if they had any real influence, Bachmann, Perry or Cain wouldn’t have been out of the running pretty much the moment the primary season started.
With that said, I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that the Tea Party was more interested in activism at the Congressional and Senate, than the Presidential, level. Maybe there is some TP influence in the recent surge by Gingrich, who seems pretty effective at putting out a cod-populist message and probably the closest thing we’ll ever see to a Rush Limbaugh candidacy, but I would have to see if there is some hard data in support of that notion.
My god, people, stop touching his belly! shudder
That’s his belly?
It’s between his ribs and his hips, it’s got to be a belly . . .