Senior Evan Schwartz, a Hatchet columnist, states that the Tea Party may be more harmful for the Republicans than the Democrats.
As students and their families swarmed to campus for move-in on Saturday, tea partiers swarmed the District to attend the “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial. And while the timing served as a reminder of what living in D.C. means for GW students, it also indicated a recent paradigm shift in the Republican Party.
Just over two years ago, the future of the Republican Party lay in the hands of John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. The three most viable candidates for the Republican presidential nomination seemed poised to take down Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. However, all five candidates soon ran into the campaign buzz saw known as Barack Obama.
Since then, those three Republicans have been cast aside, maligned within their own party and fighting for their political lives. Now, the three most important Republicans are political commentators, members of the media and professional pot stirrers. This troika has put its stamp on the political landscape over the last two years without winning a single vote, and has elevated the status of the Republican Party by becoming near rock stars to their fans. Those three people are Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.