Tea Party Madness

THE 'MAD' TEA PARTY

Do you remember the scene in Alice in Wonderland with the Mad Hatter’s tea party? Well, if you can imagine Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Christine O’Donnell along with other right wing leaders sitting around a table, then that’s the Tea Party movement in a nutshell. Or a tea pot, whichever you prefer.

The Tea Party movement, which is really a conglomerate made up of a bunch of smaller movements and protest groups, has become the premium rightwing party in America. Everything they have touched has turned to gold in Republican eyes. No matter how intolerant their candidates have been, they have been backed all the way. Even the influential and powerful Karl Rove, former policy maker for the Bush administration, has been forced to back down over previous negative comments over the movement.

All of this is despite their lack of success in the mid-term elections held earlier this month. Critics have pointed out that had the Republican Party put forward more “mainstream” candidates in the races they lost, then the right could have controlled the whole of Congress. This was especially true in the Delaware and Nevada elections, which had been targeted as seats to win.

The fate of their spiritual leader Sarah Palin remains unclear. Many of the candidates she backed in the elections were defeated. The defeat of Joe Miller in Alaska was particularly embarrassing, coming as it did in her own home state. It was made even worse by the fact that he was defeated by the Republican’s rejected candidate, Lisa Murkowski, who won the election as a write-in candidate, the first in nearly 50 years.

Since the elections, the question has been whether Palin will run in 2012. With a successful book tour and a primetime TV series, the likelihood has been diminished. But her refusal to commit to running, or not running has left the door open for her and her dog-faithful supporters.

The only question left for her to answer is whether she will walk through it.