The 'Tea Party' - Help Me Understand Why They Have So Much Influence In Congress.....

[global1]

My understanding is that the Tea Party is not in the majority in Congress. I guess I'm not sure how many TP's hold office in the House and Senate. Yet I keep hearing that they have a great influence in Congress and they are the sticking point or the reason that Congress is not getting things done. My impression is that the TP is the 'tail wagging the dog'.

How is it that they have so much influence? Why can't Repug leadership just tell them to take a flying leap and just disregard them?
They seem to be the farthest right of the right wing - kind of the crazies out there.

Really are their followers such (their constituents) that they can muster a strangle hold on progress? '

Help me understand this - please.

[Scuba]

1. Because the PTB told Congress to give them that power.

[global1]

2. PTB?.....nt

[Scuba]

8. "Powers That Be"

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Because if TTP doesn't vote with mainstream Republicans, they aren't the majority

and Dems have a de facto majority and can pass bills and defeat bills.

[Kingofalldems]

4. They are another cover for uber wealthy oligarchists.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. They chose to get people elected. Contrast this with OWS which chose to not do so.

[el_bryanto]

6. The Republican Party is more dependent on its base than the Democratic Party

The Republican strategy has generally been to motivate all of their base to vote while ceding the centrists to the Democrats. Or to put it another way - in deciding whether or not to piss off their base or to piss of the middle ground, they choose to piss off the middle ground. Rove in particular believed that if they got all of their base to vote they would win without needing to concede to the centrists.

This strategy has benefits - their base does indeed vote in greater numbers than our base, and the new voter suppression drives aren't likely to hurt their voters while they will hurt ours. The downside is that their base is used to being catered too in a way that our base isn't. The truth is that as mad as we might get over Syria or Larry Summers or a thousand other little betrayals, when it comes to voting, we'll vote for the Democrat.

Right now Republicans are just as likely to stay home if they feel their ass has been insufficiently kissed. Or at least that's the perception.

Bryant

[JVS]

7. I'm not convinced that the Tea party and the "republican leadership" are a disjoint set.

Part of what gives the teaparty power is the Democratic party's aggressive courting oif the center. Since our party has moved right, the republicans don't have the luxury of moving left at all. The only way for them to keep or even retain their power is to rally their conservative base.

[cutroot]

9. Money

They are simply a funnel for free cash.

[d_r]

10. I say gerrymandering

most congressional districts are gerrymandered to the point that they are "safe." the GOP had the good timing to get in power in a lot of states at the time of the census results and gerrymandered like crazy. So most of the "republican" districts are going to go republican no matter what. Look at someone like DesJarlais in Tennessee. Here's a guy that's a doctor who was in the middle of a scandal during the election - he is vocally anti-abortion, but he's forces his wife to get one, had sex with patients, all kind of crap. That should have made the conservative voters in his district run away screaming. But he still won. Any republican would have one that district. Cognitive dissonance comes in here, and those voters in the gerry mandered districts will vote against their own self interests and beliefs because they rally around the flag. So what happens in these gerrymandered districts is that the primaries become more important than the general elections. Whoever wins the gop primary is going to win the election. So the gop politicians, in order to win the primary, have to out conservative each other and play to the extremes of their party. The "tea party" may be a small percentage of overall voters, but it is a large chunk of GOP primary voters, and they have shown the ability to get the most crazy candidate to win the GOP primary and on the ticket. So the congress gop doesn't try to appeal to moderate republicans or the middle or the good of the nation, they try to appeal to the farthest right extreme. Throw in lots of money from the astroturf groups and lots of airtime from the conservative biased media and you've got a perfect storm.

[global1]

15. i've Heard The "Good Timing" Of The Repug Party To Gain Power At The Time Of Census Argument Before.

but was it good timing or a well thought out strategy and effort to gain control in the states because they knew that they could take advantage of the census and gerrymander?

Good timing makes it look like they just stumbled into the gerrymandering strategy in the states.

It wasn't any secret that the census data would be available to take advantage of and that the party in power could use that to their advantage.

I'm of the opinion that this was a well thought out strategy and can't believe that the Dems hadn't had the same strategy and campaigned harder to gain power in the states.

We know that both parties partake in gerrymandering. I just think that the Dems got outplayed on this and didn't have the foresight to use the census to their advantage.

I'm always amazed by the long-range plans that the Repug Party seem to make to maneuver into power. Seems like the Repug 'think tanks' out think the Dem 'think tanks'.

[d_r]

16. you are right

it wasn't serendipity. It is their standard operating procedure. Take over local government, school boards, keep expanding out.

[Capt. Obvious]

11. Corporate money that created the tea party runs congress

[LiberalEsto]

12. Money, the Kochroaches, lobbyists nt

[Bluenorthwest]

13. There is no Tea Party, they are Republicans and just Republicans.

The Republican leadership is their leadership, they are one big Party that wants you to say 'Tea Party' so as to soften the blame on the main brand.

[hootinholler]

14. Because anyone who goes against the Koch brothers agenda

Will find a very well funded tea party candidate running in their primary. The whole tea party thing was to disguise the Koch assault on Congress as a grass roots movement.

[tblue37]

17. They are playing "Bad Cop/Worse Cop,"

but they have the same agenda--to advance the interests of the 1% who own them. The TP gives the supposedly more reasonable leadership cover, and it also, by contrast, lets the mainstream Republicans look less radical than they really are.

[global1]

21. Let's Explore Your Comment "to advance the interests of the 1% who own them"....

What does it take to own someone? It always troubled me that some of these Repugs that espouse these wild and crazy positions are said to be owned by the 1%er's.

Do they own them because they fund their elections and re-elections so that they can maintain their job and power? Is it only a money thing? Is it an ego thing? Or is there something more sinister going on? Are they being blackmailed in any way?

I'm asking this because I've always thought that these Repugs have family, friends and associates that are also effected in a negative way by their crazy positions. How can they do that to their family, friends and associates? How can they live with themselves knowing that their positions can hurt their own family, friends and associates?

How can they get up and say things and sometimes boldface lie? How can they take positions on gays, abortion, voters rights, women's issues - knowing that they most probably have a gay in the family or a gay friend; a wife or daughter that could be raped; friends that are in the minority, old, poor, students - that they are preventing them the right to vote?

How can they live with themselves? Does the position of being a Senator or Congressman mean so much to them that they are able to compromise their ethics and morals and possibly hurt someone that they love?

I know that I couldn't face myself in the mirror every morning if I took some of the positions that they take and espouse.

What type of person are they if they are able to compromise their good names for a few shekels or fame? And how is it that the Repug Party seems to ferret out these types of people?

I've struggled with these thoughts for a long time and just can't get my arms around it. What does it take to become a sell-out?

[JoePhilly]

18. The GOP knows that its dying off.

The only part of their base is the crazy far right.

The GOP's only chance of getting elected down the road is to get more of the crazy far right to vote, while getting everyone else to stop voting.

Demographically, the GOP should be dead, but because most people don't vote, the GOP simply has to get its numbers UP ... and they have to do that with the passionate crazy base.

Most moderate Republicans left the GOP long ago.

[Initech]

19. A scary combination of Koch Bros., Fox News, and of course $$$$.

[Xyzse]

20. They are Loud, Organized and backed by Dirty Money