Recently a Tea Party convention was held in Tennessee where activists from around the country met to discuss the future of the movement. However, the Tea Party Movement (TPM) needs to be careful in the next few months and the coming years.

What or who exactly is the TPM? They’re small business owners, blue-collar workers, professionals, teachers, students, cops, and retirees. They all seem to share a few basic tenets: limited constitutional government, fiscal responsibility and low taxes.

In February of 2009, as the now abject failure of a stimulus bill passed, national sentiment against outrageous government spending came to a boil. On live television, from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CNBC host Rick Santelli called for a modern day tea party protest.

Over the next few months, especially during the summer’s healthcare town hall season, public anger seemed to coalesce in opposition to the President and Congress’s healthcare takeover.

Spontaneously, Tea Party groups began forming. Regular folks that had never been politically active began to organize friends, family and co-workers.

Many Democratic pundits have tried to disparage the grassroots TPM as “Astroturf.” But there is no leader and there is no organization. It’s an organic movement full of dedicated folks.

Numerous tea parties were held around the country, in small towns and big cities – even attracting hundreds of thousands of people to the national mall right up to the steps of the Capitol building. The message couldn’t have been more clear. “No” means no.

The TPM is definitely having a major impact. Some commentators are calling it the most significant political movement since the anti-war movement of the Vietnam War era.

Both Democrats and Republicans are afraid of being on the wrong side of the TPM. The Democrats fear being a target of the TPM in the general elections. Republican incumbents, on the other hand, fear the same in the primaries.

This threat, and the popularity of the TPM among conservatives and independents, has given nominal conservative politicians the moral gumption (or perhaps merely self-interested incentive) to stand firm against runaway spending and government growth.

A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll suggests that the public favors the “Tea Party” over both Democrats and Republicans, even though the TPM isn’t an actual party. But that could change, soon.

In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) faces dismal poll numbers in his bid for re-election in the fall. The Republican challenger stands a better than good chance of toppling Mr. Reid.

But a group in Nevada is running a Tea Party candidate as a third party in the general election. This threatens to split the conservative vote and hand the election back to Reid, much the way Ross Perot is blamed by some for electing Bill Clinton when he split the Republican vote in 1992.

The dilemma facing the TPM is delicate. It wants to be politically effective, but not compromise on core values. Hence, the move in Nevada to go the third party route.

But third parties never work in American politics. They draw just enough votes and manpower to spoil elections for their closest allies.

And let’s face it – if the TPM can’t win a GOP primary, then what are the odds it could win a majority in a general election as a third party? If the TPM is as popular as the recent polls suggest, and I believe it is, it should have no trouble making its mark in Republican primaries.

The fact of the matter is that the GOP is the only viable vehicle for the TPM to help bring the country back to its founding principles.

Some purists in the TPM still won’t have any of it. They’re still jaded by the GOP’s betrayal of conservative values over the past decade and a half.

Undoubtedly, Republicans needed to be punished for having compromised on principles. They stopped acting like conservatives, and they got shellacked in 2006 and 2008.

They got the message. Congressional Republicans have been virtually unanimous since 2008 in their opposition to the President’s bloated budget, the so-call stimulus, and the healthcare takeover. Lesson learned.

As with all ideological movements, there is a fine line between principle and pragmatism. The TPM, if it wants to remain relevant, needs to realize that the time for principled conservative politics is in the GOP primaries.

That’s what is happening in Florida. Up-and-coming Republican star Marco Rubio, a favorite of the TPM, has a great shot at beating Republican Gov. Charlie Crist in the upcoming Senate primary.

It is in the primary that the TPM should work to get limited government, constitutional conservatives elected. But come general election there needs to be a dose of pragmatism. Vote with your heart in the primary; vote with your head in the general. If that’s the mindset of the TPM, it’s apt to remain a powerful force in American politics well into the future.



Tar Heel Dispatch is written by Tyler Younts, a second-year law student at Campbell University. Younts, who grew up in Farmer, has a passion for writing and for politics and for writing about politics. E-mail comments to news@randolphguide.com or to Younts at tlyounts0209@email.campbell.edu