Helpful or Hurtful?

With the recent election in this country, people have been buzzing with talk of their political ideals. One topic that has sparked a large amount of conversation is the emergence of the Tea Party. Valuing low taxes, small government, and the original Constitution, other parties are left scrambling to make up their minds about this group of would-be fundamentalists. Some think they’re just radical Republicans. Others think that the Tea party is an entirely new party. What many can agree upon, though, is that no matter how this group is viewed, they don’t bode well for the Republicans.

A huge way that the Tea Party hurts the Republicans is drawing away votes from the conservative party. In the primaries for this election, there were several Republican candidates who were beaten out by their Tea Party rival. Christine O’Donnell, for instance, won in Delaware, much to the surprise and dismay of those in the Republican Party. With votes from conservatives going to two different sources, this gives the Democrats a much more favorable chance at the win.

Some Americans are under the impression that the Republican Party can harness the energy and excitement the Tea Party is creating with the people to boost their campaign; they took the House, didn’t they? Wasn’t that the goal? To this I say yes. That was the goal. However, this didn’t actually have anything to do with the Tea Party, or with Republicans either for that matter. The shift toward conservative voting was simply anti-Democrat.

In the history of the United States, protest votes have happened again and again. The populous uses these opportunities to send a message: after September 11, the conservative shift showed that Americans wanted to unite and fight back. In 1998, the democratic vote said, “Keep Bill Clinton’s personal life out of this.” Now, the people of America are simple wondering where their jobs are. They think the democratic government has failed them. Thus, they vote Republican; Americans voted against Democrats and against Congress. The gain of the House has almost nothing to do with the Tea Party at all.

If you don’t believe in the idea of the protest vote, then there’s another reason the idea of the Tea Party being an asset to the Republican Party is absurd. This is clear because a recent CBS/New York Times Poll puts only 19% of those polled as having a favorable view of the Tea Party, not necessarily even supporting them, and 63% of those polled were outright against the fundamentalists. Another poll from the same source shows that most people (60%) think that the economy or jobs are the main problem in this country. Only 3% said the deficit was the central issue, agreeing with the Tea Party. The idea that the Republicans could harness the Tea Party energy to rally the troupes and Take the House is therefore absurd; Tea Partyers really don’t have that much support for the Republicans to piggy back off of.

As it turns out, the slightly extreme views of the Tea Party have, in fact, scared voters away! Very much like this cartoon depicts, independents and undecided voters not taking part in the anti-Congress movement take a look at those views and say, “Well, I think I’ll vote Democrat this time around.” Because many associate the Tea Party with Republicans, their views become the conservative norm. In other words, all Republicans start to seem scary. Additionally, when the Tea Party doesn’t carefully choose its candidates, they loose more votes still. After Christine O’Donnell claimed to have scientific proof that God created the Earth in six 24-hour period and revealed her lack of knowledge of the Constitution (the document she’s supposed to be referring back to) publically, support dwindled considerably. Congratulations, Tea Party.

The Tea Party is damaging the rest of the country’s conservatives, this much is clear. Not only do they not have enough national support to be an asset of any kind to Republicans, but their extreme views and poor candidate choices have deterred those who were previously undecided. And, to make matters worse, Tea party candidates took seats from the Republican Party in the primaries, hindering their chances at taking majorities in general. Sadly for hopeful Republicans, the truth is, the Tea Party is only harmful.