Over the weekend, Politico ran a story by Alex Isenstadt about the “failures” of Tea Party candidates. This article reads more like DC-based myopia. Movements don’t transform at the federal level or statewide level first. Simply creating the network with the skills to execute huge campaigns is hard and takes time.
The place to go to see the successes are things like county parties, congressional district conventions, state legislative, and municipal seats. Those are races where a little bit of money and a little bit of energy go a huge way. They are also races with relatively low name ID. And they are the entry-level races for future leaders.
One of races that showed me that something was going on was the November election of Dan Halloran to the New York City Council. He is also the chairman of the New York chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus. (recall that RLC is the branch of the Ron Paul movement that believes in integration with the GOP party infrastructure)
Similarly, anyone who has been following local party politics knows that tea party supporters and Ron Paul and RLC organizations have had a huge impact on local party organizations. I wrote about this in response to Ken Cuchinelli’s crushing convention victory to become the Republican nominee for Virginia’s Attorney General.
It is easy to miss what is going on in American politics and to the American right if you focus on Washington. It isn’t happening in Washington. What is happening will lead to the Washington-based leadership being overturned by a generation of new leaders.