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This week, House Speaker John Boehner resigned from both his post as the Speaker and also from Congress in response to rising dissatisfaction with his performance from the Tea Party caucus. House Speaker’s resignation in the middle of his term is unprecedented in modern history and only shows the growing rift within the Republican party. However, the Tea Party’s at times emotional approach to government is picking the wrong fight for the wrong prize—and will likely harm the Tea Party’s chances of ultimate success in achieving its policy goals.
To be certain, Tea Party has a lot to be frustrated about. They have helped Republicans win every Congressional election since Obama took office in 2008—providing Republicans with a majority in the Senate and the largest majority in the House since 1928. Yet, they have little to show for it. Obama has managed to force his extreme liberal agenda—whether through dirty politics, unconstitutional actions or otherwise. Obamacare continues to be the law of the land. Millions of illegal immigrants continue to enter the US. Obama’s unconstitutional executive order on immigration was only halted through the courts. EPA has issued its most aggressive set of regulations yet, all but killing the coal industry that is a cornerstone of mid-west America. A disastrous Iran nuclear deal was signed despite questionable legality as many scholars (correctly) believe that it should have been a treaty requiring approval by two third of the Senate. And more.
In response, the Tea Party caucus seems to have lost patience, as well as sight of the big picture strategy, and appears to seek a scorched earth policy. What the Tea Party now seems to want is to shut down the Federal government over funding for Planned Parenthood. This is so even though, in a recent CNN poll, more than 70% of Americans opposed shutting down the Federal government over funding for Planned Parenthood. What would such a shutdown achieve? Defunding of Planned Parenthood? Extremely unlikely, if previous attempts at a shutdown are any guide for success of the objectives. What it will achieve, however, is an American electorate that will blame Republicans for what they would perceive as stubborn, irresponsible governing—not to mention the fuel that it would add to the bogus Democratic attack line of “war on women.”
And so is the story of many other demands of the Tea Party caucus. What the Congress’ Tea Partiers do not seem to appreciate is that as long as there is a President in the White House who has a veto power and is willing to bend the Constitution to achieve his goals, there is little a Republican Congress alone can do—except to shut down the government or file law suits with the courts. That inability of Congress to effectively stop a President who does not consider himself bound by the US Constitution is why the solution to the Tea Party’s policy goals is not ousting the charismatic House Speaker who is respected by everyone and is a desirable face for the Republican party. Rather, the correct strategy is to keep their sights on the Presidency in 2016 and avoid doing anything that would harm the Republican chances of success in 2016. Because winning the Congress alone is necessary, but not enough—as the last six years have demonstrated. And if the Tea Party succeeds with its scorched earth policy, harming the Republican chances for winning the Presidency in 2016 is exactly—and only—what they will achieve. And regardless of how many Congressional elections they win, losing the Presidency is enough to preclude them from achieving their policy goals.
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