Of Tea Parties and the GOP

In my piece on the Rhode Island Tea Party a couple of weeks back, I wrote a bit about the tea party movement's uneasy relationship with the GOP - here and nationwide. The movement, a collection of ideological purists, have been quick to criticize the Republican Party for its role in expanding federal spending in recent years. And it has shown little patience for moderates in the party. The most prominent national example, at the moment - a special Congressional race in upstate New York. Tea party types backed a third-party, hard-right conservative, Douglas L. Hoffman, against a moderate Republican and the Democrat in the race. News this weekend that the Republican, Dede Scozzafava, dropped out of the race in the face of poor polling and backed the Democrat, Bill Owens.

It is a striking sign of the strength of the conservative wing of the party in a post-Obama battle for the soul of the party. And that's bad news for a GOP trying to regain its foothold among moderate voters.

But it is also a sign that a group of independent-minded activists can band together and be effective in the political arena. Here in Rhode Island, the right has displayed some organizational spunk of late in its fight against the binding arbitration bill. But it says here that the Rhode Island Tea Party still has to show that it can have a significant impact in a strongly Democratic state. That Congressional district in New York has been represented by Republicans since the 19th Century. It has a conservative pedigree. Rhody is a different animal.