Michael Barone makes an interesting observation: “The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.” Now in fairness to Obama, his undecipherable “we are the change we are waiting for” campaign pabulum has been replaced by standard-fare liberal statism. It may not be new or have a track record of success, but he does at least have “ideas” — tax more, spend more, regulate more, nationalize more, and borrow more.
The tea party activists have been written off by as rage-filled ignoramuses — just angry, unthinking riff-raff, the liberal pundits and many candidates have told us. But they miss the point. This is one of the more ideologically driven and, yes, idea-rich, populist movements in a long time. These people have a rather well-developed intellectual framework. As Barone explains:
In contrast, the tea party protesters, many of them as fractious and loudmouthed as David Brooks thinks, are interested in substantive political issues. They decry the dangers of expanding the national debt, increasing government spending, and putting government in command of the health care sector. Their concerns have basis in fact. The national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of the economy over 10 years, and the Democrats’ health care bills threaten to bend the cost curve up. Higher taxes could choke off economic recovery and keep unemployment up near double-digit rates for years. Last year’s stimulus bill surreptitiously raised the budget baseline for many domestic spending programs and sent money to state and local governments — a payoff to the public employee unions who spent more than $100 million to elect Democrats in 2008.
Agree with the tea party folk or not, these are substantive public policy issues of fundamental importance.
Obama and his liberal cheerleaders have alternatively ignored and derided the tea party protesters. Perhaps they should focus on their ideas: limited government, the rule of law, personal responsibility, the end of corporate bailouts, and fiscal sanity. Those views are proving to be increasingly popular with both independents and conservatives. Politicians running in 2010 against Obama will try to systematize these, putting them into a handy list or maybe a new “contract” with voters. But those who have been paying attention rather than writing off the tea party activists know that they’ve been talking about these issues for a year. It just took the chattering class a while to catch up.
