http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...the-tea-party/
The tea party is at a crossroads.
Almost four years removed from its initial stirrings, the tea party movement finds itself riven by internal discord, without some of its most prominent leaders and faced with a party establishment that seems ready to abandon it — or at least buck its wishes — in the face of the 2012 election results.
“The Tea party has the opportunity to remain a leading force in American politics, but to do so, it must mature, take the next step and prove it can be part of a coalition that can actually govern,” said Jesse Benton, a longtime adviser to retiring Rep. Ron Paul and now campaign manager for Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s 2014 re-election race. “After two cycles, it’s not enough to just be the angry people waving Gadsden Flags and yelling about Washington.”
Defeated Florida Rep. Allen West. Harry Hamburg/AP
There’s little debate that the last few months have been among the toughest of the tea party’s (relatively) brief existence.
To wit:
* Freedomworks, one of the leading pillars of the tea party movement, appears to be in the midst of a major internal squabble — with former Texas Rep. Dick Armey leaving the organization on what appears to be not-so-good terms.
* Reps. Allen West (R-Fla.) and Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), two of the leading tea party figures in Congress, both lost re-election bids on Nov. 6. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) narrowly escaped defeat against an unheralded challenger. And tea party favorites like Todd Akin (Akin was never a tea party favorite and most tea party aligned groups backed his opponents in the Republican primary) and Richard Mourdock lost what should have been sure-thing Senate races in Missouri and Indiana, respectively.
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