What if they gave a Tea Party and no one came?
Let's pull a quote of interest from this morning's
Today in Congress:
But [Republicans] fumbled the continuing appropriations bill, which went down by a vote of 195-230, with 48 Republican nays. News outlets like ABC reported that, "the surprise 230-195 defeat came at the hands of Democrats and tea party Republicans." But I'll note (again) for the record that there are 60 members of the House Tea Party Caucus, the gang Michele Bachmann claims to lead under that banner. Fewer than half of that number actually voted nay yesterday. Just 25 did. Which means that just barely more than half of the nay votes from Republicans came from members who identify themselves openly with Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus, and that 56% of the Tea Party Caucus actually voted for it. Bachmann herself, of course, was nowhere to be found and missed the vote entirely. In fact, Bachmann hasn't cast a vote since August 1st, and has missed the last 29 roll calls in the House.
Who's supposedly in the House Tea Party Caucus? And what exactly is it, anyway?
Well, the key thing about this particular group is that it's really the creation of Ol' Crazy Eyes herself, Michele Bachmann (R-MN-06). And though Bachmann has done everything she can think of to associate herself with the Tea Party brand (whatever that actually is), she was first elected to Congress in 2006, and her career as an elected official began in 2000, so she pretty clearly predates the Tea Party craze. Attaching herself to the brand has been a decidedly after-the-fact affair, and that's important to note because the same is true for the majority of what became the "Tea Party Caucus" of which she installed herself as head. The first time we looked at the composition of the "Tea Party Caucus," we saw that the average member was actually in their 13th year of incumbency in the House, and things don't look to have changed much since then. There are only 15 actual freshmen among the 60 listed members of Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus (from out of a freshman Republican class of 80+), and for the record, they split 8-7 in favor of yesterday's appropriations measure. And in case you were wondering, only nine Republican freshman not counted among Bachmann's ranks voted no. So that's a total of just 16 Republican frosh among the 48 GOP no votes.
What this means for the "Tea Party" is that the gang that's co-opted their brand in the House has almost nothing to do with the image most journalists and members of the public have of Tea Party-affiliated Members of Congress. For the most part, those who have claimed the label are not freshman upstarts, they're Bush-era or earlier Republicans, with more than a decade of incumbency baggage. And not only that, but they're nothing close to a cohesive voting unit. So when "Tea Party Republicans" are credited in the traditional media with derailing some initiative or another, you've got to think carefully (if it matters) about just who's really behind things, because the chances are that the bulk of the "Tea Party Caucus" was actually on the other side, voting with the Establishment Republican Leadership, just as they always have.
That's if they're voting at all, which brings us to Bachmann, who hasn't voted in the House at all since the debt ceiling deal on August 1st. "Her" caucus is splitting itself nearly 50/50 every time there's a contest, she's not around to "lead" it, and they're not taking her direction in any case. Which makes her being on the road campaigning for President as some kind of Tea Party leader all too ridiculous. She's not leading anything at all, and even if she were to show some ability to direct this gang she's thrown together, she'd still be miles away from being able to demonstrate that it had anything to do with the "Tea Party" as most people understand it (if that's even possible).
The House "Tea Party Caucus" is a collection of Republican Johnnies-come-lately, clinging to what was once a popular brand in the hopes of buying some political immunity at home. But as far as providing a political direction, or even putting voting muscle behind some recognizable agenda, the "caucus" has been a complete and total bust.