Major trouble is brewing for the Republican Party’s dominant Tea Party faction and for the GOP itself. The Tea Partiers’ clout in this government shutdown showdown, and in positioning the Republican Party to threaten an economy-destroying debt-limit default, has effectively replaced the GOP’s much-hyped re-branding with negative brand reaffirmation. A host of polls show the party’s numbers heading south. And some of the party’s big donors are not pleased.
The Washington Post reports that some Tea Party members face “early rumblings of a political backlash in some of their districts.” Many other news reports contain unnamed Republican congressmen fearful of the Tea Party-influenced, no compromise, defund ObamaCare strategy. The operative word here is “unnamed.” With the notable exception of New York’s Rep. Peter King, most are afraid to publicly step forward or to break with their party’s stand. Even an expected moderate Republican revolt in the Senate fizzled.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.