Much ink has been spilled on the implications of the Tea Party movement—and growing public anger at their government generally—for both the nation as a whole and the particular effects on the upcoming midterm election. However, I haven’t seen much discussion as to how Tea Party candidates would act if actually elected. While there’s some credence to the argument that the extremism demonstrated by many of these candidates will be detrimental to their chances of actually winning, I feel that at this point, with no sign of abatement for the Democrats’ electoral prospects (let alone poor economic conditions), it’s a scenario that bears considering. We’ve already seen Tea Party candidates be surprisingly successful in Republican primary races, with the most surprising result (at least to me) being last night’s Senate primary in Alaska:
| AK–SEN (GOP Primary) | |
|---|---|
| Joe Miller | 51.1% 45,909 |
| Senator Lisa Murkowski |
48.9% 43,949 |
| 97.9% reporting | |
While it’s too soon to declare a winner in this race yet due to the number of absentee ballots that haven’t been counted yet, this race shouldn’t have been close to begin with. Indeed, it wasn’t really on my mind that it would be competitive.
The problem with figuring out what the Tea Party candidates would accomplish if elected is that their stated policy goals don’t seem particularly realistic. For instance, Miller’s issues page emphasizes his opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, global warming legislation, and all abortions. Somehow I don’t think bills expressing these policy views are likely to go anywhere—if nothing else, because President Obama will veto them. I see these Tea Party Republicans as more of an opposition force doing their best to obstruct anything that Obama and Congressional Democrats support. Since Republicans essentially vote “no” as a bloc in both the House and Senate already, I’m not sure that this will make any real difference from a legislative perspective in the 112th Congress. (Unless some form of filibuster reform is enacted in the Senate, it just won’t be these people the Democrats will be seducing to get 60 votes.
That’s assuming the Democrats keep some control of Congress. If the Republicans retake at least the House (I still view the Senate as unlikely, due in part to the extreme nature of these candidates, but not completely out of the question), then all bets are off. And I still don’t have a real concept of what, say, a Speaker Boehner would get through the House that would actually get enacted. My greatest concern is that the Obama Administration would adopt some “moderate” form of the Republican calls for spending cuts, despite the evidence that stimulus spending is pretty much the only thing keeping the economy from contraction. The combination of a continued recession, a government seen as impotent to solve problems, and rising popular anger about all of it can lead to places I don’t really want to think about.