Boston Globe: Romney's rise challenges tea party's clout in GOP

[pampango]

Mitt Romney's early success in the Republican presidential race is challenging the tea party's clout. Will it continue to pull the GOP sharply right? Will it slowly fade? Or merge with mainstream Republican elements in a nod to pragmatism, something it's hardly known for?

On the surface, Romney's strength seems at odds with the tea party's fiery success in ousting Republicans seen as compromisers, and in making the House GOP caucus more ideological, even when its leaders plead for flexibility. Romney defends the government's 2008 bank bailouts, plus the mandated health insurance he initiated as Massachusetts governor. He says he can work with "good Democrats." Although he later changed, Romney once supported abortion rights, gun control and gay rights.

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh repeatedly criticized Romney on his radio show last week. "Romney is not a conservative," he said. "The Republican base doesn't want Romney."

In last week's debate in New Hampshire, Romney defended President George W. Bush's 2008 decision to spend billions to rescue banks teetering on collapse, partly because of disastrous home loans. ... Many conservatives despise the bailout, known as TARP, for Troubled Asset Relief Program. In one of their first political victories, tea party activists in Utah chanted "TARP, TARP" at then-Sen. Robert Bennett as they bounced him from the GOP ticket at a 2010 party convention. Bennett, a three-term senator with solid conservative credentials, had voted for the program.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/10/15/romneys_rise_challenges_tea_partys_clout_in_gop/