Peggy Noonan makes a compelling case in the Wall Street Journal that the Tea Party has rescued the GOP by allowing Republicans to escape the statist legacy of George W. Bush and forcing them to re-focus on the need to restrain big government. I’m not sure that she’s right. After all, the establishment wing of the GOP will try to co-opt and corrupt the new Representatives and Senators elected November 2. But there’s no doubt that the GOP is enjoying a revival (reprieve?) thanks to this spontaneous and organic grassroots movement.
…the tea party is not a “threat” to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn’t remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
…The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration’s spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush…
[T]he tea party stiffened the GOP’s spine by forcing it to recognize what it had not actually noticed, that we are a nation in crisis. The tea party famously has no party chiefs and no conventions but it does have a theme—stop the spending, stop the sloth, incompetence and unneeded regulation—and has lent it to the GOP.
