The New Republicans

After the Tea Party’s election success, the American right has a mandate to fight for a smaller state

‘I am not a witch.’ Now that’s not something you hear very often from a politician. But Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party darling and Republican candidate in Delaware for the US Senate, felt the need to say these words in a campaign commercial, after a youthful dalliance with witchcraft was revealed. The denial was somewhat undermined by the all-black outfit and smoky background. But the Democrats and their cheerleaders in the US media had a field day.

These Tea Party folks? Strange, barking, dangerous. Who’d vote for them? As predicted, though Ms O’Donnell had won a stunning victory against a GOP establishment candidate for the Republican nomination, she lost to the Democrats in Tuesday’s mid-term elections. Presumably the broomstick community felt jilted — and her opposition to masturbation was hardly a vote-winner.

But the Tea Party, a potent brew of libertarianism, limited government and social conservatism, has had the last laugh.

While the Democrats and the media concentrated on its more exotic candidates and wilder fringes, they failed to notice (at least until it was too late) that something potentially transformative was stirring in the American grassroots. They’ve noticed now.

On Tuesday the Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives in the biggest landslide for 62 years; and they slashed the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, which means they’ve effectively lost control of the upper chamber too (Republicans plus populist, so-called ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats rapidly moving right equals a conservative majority in the Senate). President Obama’s name was not on Tuesday’s ballot. But he got a kicking nevertheless — and it was administered largely by the Tea Party.

Not all Republicans in the class of 2010 owe their seats to the Tea Party. But many do.