re: #702 Charles

If you define “positive impact” solely by whether it helps Republicans gain power, then yes, tea parties have a “positive impact.”

If you look at the broader issue of whether the influence of tea partiers is actually GOOD for the GOP, though, the impact is all negative. They greatly encourage the fringe, they drive away moderates, and they force the party as a whole much farther to the extreme edges.

And that’s why I want nothing to do with them. If you’re not bothered by the fact that tea parties are organized by kooks, and attract lots of kooks, I can see why you’d argue they’re a positive phenomenon.

That does bother me. But I also believe that these kooks tapped in to something much larger than themselves and it becomes them ridding the coat tails, not vice versa.

As a conservative, it is hard to argue that what happened in MA is negative. Independents overwhelmingly voted for Brown. The tea party movement did not scare them away. That surprised me because conventional wisdom suggested otherwise.

It may be that the kooks are the fringe and not representative of the body of the movement.