The Tea Party Movement
It is time for Republican leaders to acknowledge that the GOP brand has lost its luster.
Yes, we made impressive gains this evening, but it is merely the American people voting for the lesser of the two evils.
We gained the control of the U.S. House of Representatives. And, that is great! It is enough to slow down the out-of-control spending that occurred during these past two years.
But, I predict two things coming soon.
First, the GOP will receive little or no blame for the next two years for what does or does not happen in Washington, DC. This will strengthen the brand.
Second, the republicans will begin their internal fight over how to embrace the Tea Party movement and what to do with Sarah Palin.
Palin is the new Richard Nixon. She is the candidate like Nixon that the party wishes would just go away. Yet, like Nixon she has made remarkable contributions to the GOP and to the value of the brand.
Top Republicans in Washington and in the national GOP establishment say the 2010 campaign highlighted an urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over: Stop Sarah Palin.
Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s mid-term campaigns.
There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the Republican nomination, a prospect many of them regard as a disaster in waiting.
Many of these establishment figures argue in not-for-attribution comments that Palin’s nomination would ensure President Barack Obama’s reelection, as the deficiencies that marked her 2008 debut as a vice presidential nominee — an intensely polarizing political style and often halting and superficial answers when pressed on policy — have shown little sign of abating in the past two years.
Top Republicans, from presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty to highly influential advisers such as Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, are said to be concerned she will run, and could win, according to the officials.
A longtime Republican leader said party elders hope to thwart Palin by strengthening the Republican National Committee, which has been a magnet for controversy and has seen lackluster fundraising under current Chairman Michael Steele, and outside groups such as those blessed by Rove and Gillespie and now spending heavily on congressional races.
