What is wrong with the Tea Party anyway?

It's current woes stem from those who see it as a pathway to their personal glory. The formula is well worn: Take a popular movement, provide leadership, usurp the movement and install your own program.

Republicans have seen the Tea Party hijack a part of their Party. What is not known is when the Tea Party will discover they have suffered the same fate.

If the Tea Party cannot return to its' roots it is doomed to fail as there is only so much tolerance for the grandstanding of some of its' leaders. When members of the Tea Party discover that those they have have placed in power have no more ability to lead than those they tossed out they will face a choice of dissolving or reorganizing.

It is up to them alone to stay viable, and if their only solution is to do nothing then that is not a solution. It is an abdication.

Christie is as conservative as any Tea Party member, yet he gets things done and refrains from blaming others for the woes of New Jersey. It is easy to assess blame but it is quite another to deal with it.

Voters see problems and they want them solved. The Tea Party, in its' current form, only provides the seeing part. Solving problems has so far escaped their grasp, and that is what is wrong with the Tea Party.

Their presence alone has the ruling class GOP freaking out. More TP candidates and you will see things get done.

A good example of when TP won seats, Trent Lott said they would work on co-opting them as soon as possible so they could learn 'how its done'.

Like I said, DNC running Alinsky on them without good cause doesn't help.

Tea Party has Obama freaking out, he just ordered the 'Don't tread on me' patch worn by navy seals longer than Obama has been alive, removed...

And look what he had IRS do to their fund raising.....nothing to fear hear but the truth.

Christie is also much more open-minded and I daresay intelligent than your average teabagger.

And how many average teabaggers do you know?

He's not alone.Not true, according to this article:Baloney. That story has been so debunked it isn't even funny.

Excellent review. Most of it seems accurate for political parties. I'm not sure that the Tea Party is much of a political party to begin with. I can't name a single of it's leaders, but I can name quite a few which others are quick to point out as leaders. Frankly I really don't know much about the Tea Party as a political party and I believe most others do not either.
Your last part about the seeing and solving is not really applicable as the "Tea Party" has not been in charge to be able to solve issues. In addition if you think the D's and the R's in congress are doing a great job solving problems you are certainly in the great minority.

I think that's right. I believe the people who supported the GOP candidates in Virginia describe themselves as Tea Partiers, so I assume that label applies to them even though I don't really know what the label means.

Bad plan. We don't ever increase taxes around here, so any tax cut will be permanent. Even if Virginia followed Reagan's example by cutting taxes, they would forget the second part of his approach where he recognized that the tax rates were too low and therefore worked with Congress to raise them. He did that because of what he saw happening in the economy. I don't trust our GOP House of Delegates to be able to make that connection.

Northam's win as Lieutenant Governor, by the way, gives control of the Senate back to the Democrats. Thank you Tea Partiers, whoever and whatever you are.

The second part of Reagan's approach was to cut spending. That was the original deal: cut taxes AND cut spending. Congress made good on the first part but could not stop itself from the spending. When the budget went bad, Reagan went ahead and let taxes rise. Both sides of the aisle are guilty of this. And they all get us fighting with each other instead of giving them all the boot.

... except on his military contractor buddies, of course

Or so he said. I'm not sure that history backs up that claim.

And the pendulum swings wildly back and forth, passing over the rest of us.

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I know quite a few and that includes a current member of the House. He is finding life in DC to be far removed from what his image of what it once was.

He told me recently that the goal of one man changing the system is nothing but a myth but he is loath to work with others as they do not share his views.

His ego is overriding his judgement which is a sure path to failure, and until he accepts the fact that our system is set up to encourage group solutions he will continue to be ineffective.

People are willing to pay millions of dollars for advice on how to get elected only to then reject any advice on how to govern. As long as this trend continues our government will remain ineffective.

I wish the self-proclaimed Tea Party people in Congress had competence commensurate with their arrogance. They go around lecturing people and acting all superior, but there's no there there.