Perspectives: Glazer on the Tea Party Movement
The Texas Association of Business is proud to present the inaugural Perspectives series, featuring commentary from influential, disparate voices on the important political and policy issues taking place in Texas and across America.
Today influential progressive blogger and political strategist Matt Glazer shares his perspective on the Tea Party movement and its influence on elections taking place in Texas and across America.
Matt Glazer, Partner, GNI Strategies: The Tea Party is to Republicans today what the Green Party was to Democrats in 1999-2000. The biggest difference is that the Tea Party has been co-opted by corporate Republicans almost immediately, whereas the Green Party was brought into the big tent of the Democratic Party over a long period of time.
In 1999, Al Gore seemed perfectly positioned to take the torch from President Clinton. Yet, the social justice centered Green Party capitalized on an anti-incumbent, anti-corporate feeling among very liberal Americans who felt Bill Clinton’s “Third Way” centrism ignored their policies and passions.
After the 2000 election and subsequent 2002 Republican rise, the Democratic Party took careful steps to include more diverse voices. The only solution for Democrats was to move slowly into a two-front campaign to win the hearts and minds of both the far left and conservative middle. It is a struggle we see play out even today among Democrats on issues like health care – but the struggle is exclusively among Democrats. The electoral consequences of the Green Party peeling off voters from traditional Democrats are no longer a reality in American politics.
Texas Republicans, however, missed the lesson.
If the Republican Party had read the tea leaves and adjusted ahead of time, Debra Medina would not be polling at 16%. If Rick Perry and the Republican Party of Texas hadn’t fought against Ron Paul throughout the 2008 elections, Medina may not even be running for office.
Instead, Medina is rising in the polls, Kay Bailey Hutchison is falling, and Rick Perry cannot break the magical 50% marker. Medina, meanwhile, has suggested that if she loses she would support an independent or Libertarian-style candidate in the general election instead of Perry or Hutchison.
While Perry is doing everything in his power to co-opt the Tea Party movement, you have to remember: he only got 39% of the vote in 2006. The Libertarian Party in Texas can receive anywhere from 3-7% in Texas elections, easily. If Medina champions a Libertarian-style Independent candidate throughout 2010, that number could easily double.
That leaves Rick Perry to fight a two-front political battle as he’s running for election – much as the Democrat he once endorsed in 1988, Al Gore, tried and failed to do in 2000. Any attempts by Perry to galvanize and co-opt the Tea Party movement only moves him further to the right, leaving him vulnerable to recruit the moderates and independents in Texas he needs to pull away from Bill White in order to win in November.
Ultimately, the Tea Party movement does not indicate a fundamental shift in political identity. Instead, Debra Medina and the Texas Tea Party are signs of a growing problem for the Republican Party – one they are trying to co-opt before they suffer Nader-like consequences in the 2010 Governor’s race.
