Tea Party and Establishment Republicans Must Come Together in November

The political Left has long attempted to dismiss the Tea Party movement as irrelevant or to denigrate it as consisting of nothing more than violent, racist, right wing extremists, so far outside the mainstream that the movement would have no real affect on the political landscape.

With several Tea Party backed candidates recently winning Republican primaries, no serious political analyst can any longer deny that the Tea Party movement is having, and most likely will continue to have, a significant effect on the political landscape. The only question is what, exactly, will the effect be?

There has been debate within the Tea Party movement concerning the direction the movement should take. Much of this debate has centered around the question of whether the Tea Party should run third party candidates or whether the movement should just focus on bringing the Republican party back to its conservative roots.

My contention has always been that if the Tea Party attempts to field third party candidates in the general election, that will do nothing more than split the Republican vote and virtually guarantee the election of Democrats. If the Tea Party wants to field candidates in Republican primaries, that’s fine. However, when the primary is over, supporters of the Tea Party candidates and supporters of the so-called Republican establishment candidates had better come together. If a Republican establishment candidate wins the primary, Tea Party supporters need to support that candidate in November. Likewise, if a Tea Party candidate is successful in the primary, establishment Republicans need to support the Tea Party candidate. If we don’t come together in November, we allow the Left to strengthen their control over the direction of our country.