Is the Tea Party responsible for yesterday’s election results?? Probably.? But perhaps not in the way you were thinking.
Journalists have written thousands of pages describing the anger, fury or excitement of the Tea Party.? But this isn’t how an economist would approach the question.? Perhaps the single deepest idea in economics is the opportunity cost principle.? And so it is worth asking: What is the opportunity cost of an active Tea Party movement?? To figure this out, you need to ask: “Or what?”
When you ask this question, you realize that figuring out the influence of the Tea Party requires comparing last night’s results to the alternative.? What election outcomes would have occurred had Tea Party activists not started getting organized a bit more than a year ago?? We don’t observe this counterfactual, but we can make some informed guesses.
My guess is that if there were no Tea Party, then the Republicans would likely have fielded more credible candidates who would have won both the Delaware and Nevada Senate races.? Likewise, a weak Tea Party candidate may also cost the Republicans the Colorado Senate seat.
There were successes for the Tea Party.? But these aren’t successes relative to the “or what?” question.? It’s likely that just about any Republican could have won in those races where the Tea Party lights shone brightest – Rand Paul‘s election to the Kentucky Senate seat, Marco Rubio defeat of Florida Governor Charlie Christ in their Senate race, or Mike Lee‘s win in Utah.
And in Alaska, voters appear likely to have done an end-run around the fervent Tea Partiers,?electing the newly-independent Lisa Murkowski.? If there were no Tea Party, she would surely be a less disaffected member of the Republican caucus.
Even if the Republicans had gotten closer to a fifty-fifty senate, they probably couldn’t have wrested control from the Democrats, because a Tea Party-laden Republican caucus is surely?less attractive to potential party-switchers like Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson.
Now perhaps there were some congressional races where Tea Party enthusiasm carried the day.? But you’ve got to balance this against the possibility that unpopular candidates in the headline Senate and gubernatorial races actually hurt other Republicans down the ticket.
I’m not convinced by my analysis.? But I do wonder: What would this morning’s newspapers (and next year’s Congress) look like had the Tea Party movement never been launched?
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I’m lamenting the effect of the “Tea Party” on actual tea parties…
Rubio was not a product of the tea types, he was adopted by them. He’s not some newcomer to politics the way O’Donnell or Rand Paul are. He was Speaker of the Florida House. Thus, he shouldn’t count as a victory for tea types.
The “Tea Party” helped the GOP yesterday — with some exceptions; in the long run it may end up destroying the Republicans.
Since the “TP” is a fraud and lies by saying it is a grassroots populist party — in reality is is dominated by corporate interests and the very welathy (e.g., the Koch Bros., big oil and bigger big.
The peons who are members lack the sophistication to understand this — and the economy will improve for the top 2% and get far bleaker for the remainder.
Then what?
Tea Party had little impact on the election in MA – Scott Brown will not have an easy time getting re-elected in two years unless he becomes the “great compromiser” – thus really losing what is left of the Tea Party in MA
Not really following this. OK, imagine no entity known as the “Tea Party.” Are we still to imagine that the voters were furious, upset by high unemployment, the race of the President, or whatever your favorite explanation is? And that some percentage of those voters voted for, say, Sharron Angle in the primary? Or are we assuming that away? I don’t think you meant that, but even so, we’re starting to get into the area of Mark Twain’s theory that Shakespeare’s plays were written, not by Shakespeare, but by “someone else of the same name.”
The Tea Party comprises mainly Republicans. This is the political equivalent of trying to get more shelf space in retailing. They will certainly caucus and vote with Republicans.
Perhaps the Democrats should gin up some new-and-improved labels for their new-new-new associate democrats.
DaveChowes:“The peons who are members lack the sophistication to understand this – and the economy will improve for the top 2% and get far bleaker for the remainder.
Then what?”
Sure as frost on a December morning: Some David Duke type will ascend; a more fascistically leaning prototype of a party replacing the Tea Partiers and more (and dangerous) unrest.
The “tea partiers” and their fellow-travellers were galvanised not only by the economy but the spectre of an “alien” government personified by an “alien” president (an “alien,” in reality, they were all-too-familiar with while trying to avoid it. Put Hillary Clinton in place of Barack, with the exact same accomplishments and ask yourself if this morning-after scenario would have occurred).
I wonder if Tea Party candidates would have run on an independent ticket if they weren’t embraced by the republican party. In that case, if the Koch brothers and Fox News had not created the movement in the image of the Republican (#11), dissidents would have split the conservative vote and Dems would have done much better.