The Tea Party movement is a wide and diverse group. It will hurt the Republican Party if some elements of the Tea Party decide to become third party advocates because it will split the conservative vote.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become.
I think there is a real misunderstanding about what the Tea Party movement is. The Tea Party movement is a sentiment in America that government is broken - both parties are to blame - and if we don't do something soon, this exceptional country will be lost, and it will become just like everybody else.
The reality of it is I think the GOP - Republicans and certainly conservatives - will partner with the Tea Party movement around this country.
The Republican establishment may in fact be so desirous of getting rid of the Tea Party as its base, they may be willing to lose some elections in order to get rid of their base and put up a new base.
The Tea Party has definitely increased political involvement, not only among Tea Party members but among people who oppose the Tea Party members. It's been a general stimulus.
The Tea Party movement itself is maybe 15, 20 percent of the electorate. It's relatively affluent, white, nativist. You know, it has rather traditional nativist streaks to it. But what is much more important, I think, is the - is its outrage.
Well you know I'm very supportive of what the Tea Party is trying to do. They're very concerned with spending, the deficit, the bailouts, you know all of those kinds of things. But I really think that the strength of the Tea Party is being a grassroots movement.
You know, the Tea Party is a - first of all, it is a significant movement, and I think the media and some pundits have tried to write it off as a bunch of cranks or something. But, in fact, it's really a very legitimate and fairly significant swath of voters out there.
The Tea Party in the United States' biggest fight is with the Republican establishment, which is really a collection of crony capitalists that feel that they have a different set of rules of how they're going to comport themselves and how they're going to run things.
The problem with the Tea Party is that it's been used in a way that scares people into supporting an agenda that's counter to their own interests.
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