The Tea Party's support dwindles, continued

GOOD NEWS, CTD: The New York Times weighs in.

Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, the libertarian advocacy group that has encouraged the growth of the Tea Party movement, said he was not surprised that the negative views had grown, and blamed that change on attacks from Democrats during the debt-ceiling debate. “It’s almost a mantra with Democrats,” he said, “ ‘Call them Tea Party extremists.’ It’s the inevitable price you pay for having an impact.” He said that the issues that Tea Party groups had been pushing — balancing the budget, reducing the debt and cutting the size of government — continued to be popular. “These issues still animate a lot of independents and a growing number of Democrats with buyers’ remorse,” he said.

Kibbe makes a good point, actually. Once an issue goes mainstream, and begins to be accepted by a large number of people, there's no longer any pressing need for a fringe-y organisation to push for it to be considered and acted upon. Furthermore, given that fiscal responsibility is advocated across the political spectrum, the Tea Party has failed to hold onto the slightest semblance of radicalism, to which the movement clung so furiously in the beginning. Its image is the most important asset. If the Tea Party had successfully managed to associate itself with the image of the 'real' America it purports to represent, the movement might have had some form of influence leading into the future. The group's major issues are scarcely limited to this poll; the true problem will resemble the fact that the Tea Party's image will be of GOP politicians, and not of the homespun, 'real' America with which it has tried so ardently to associate.