Republicans and the Tea Party

As noted in a previous post, the Tea Party movement is having an effect on Republican nominees and their policies; they are lurching to the right. Specifically Meg Whitman the billionaire former boss of eBay has become the GOP nominee for the governor's race in California, and the multi-millionaire former boss of HP Carly Fiorina has become the GOP nominee for the California Senate seat.

In addition, the Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, is the Tea Party movement's favourite, and defeated the moderate candidate to be the challenger for the seat belonging to Harry Reid, the incumbent Democrat and Senate majority leader. As noted in this article here (one which also briefly covers a successful Democrat in Arkansas) the Sharron Angle is the Obama team's favoured Republican candidate too as it will make Harry Reid's chance of keeping his seat higher:

Ms Angle’s controversial policies include privatising Social Security (pensions) and closing the federal departments of energy and education, among others.

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The key problem, as noted here in the "Democracy in America" blog is that they have moved to the right to avoid being outflanked by other candidates in the race and to get the support from the Tea Party movement types of the Republican party. California is generally a "Blue" state, and is more liberal than most places in the US. It'll be interesting to see how they fare in this year's mid-terms, and particularly whether they can move back to the middle to get the independent voters and at the same time avoid being called a "Republican in Name Only" or RINO.

In other US-related news, Congress is likely yet again not to be able to pass a bill to take action on climate change. Scathing stuff from another post from Democracy in America, especially since over two-thirds of US citizens support action (although they don't want to increase taxes, just spending). In other analysis here, Senator Graham who originally helped write the bill he is now objecting to is now saying that there is not enough provision for further off-shore drilling (of the kind which is spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico).

More significantly for G&P students is the analysis of the Grist article linked to above which says that the Republican party has moved away from anything which smacks of limiting big-business (actually they say it much less kindly than that). In their analysis and in the this article here Senator Graham has been trying to find a way out of supporting the bill, and has finally found it.

Whether the Republican party and the actions of politicians will continue to be driven by the Tea Party movement away from anything resembling the centre ground will be interesting to see, especially in the impact on the mid-terms in November.

It is also a useful illustration of how Congress does (or doesn't) work as a key part of the legislative process. A bi-partisan approach to some of the key issues in American politics today (health-care reform, climate change) is just not possible it would seem.