The Tea Party Will Still Run the States, No Matter Who Wins the Presidency

colorlines.com — Recently, there seems to be a sense of relief among liberal and progressive commentators who observe that the swell of conservative populist rage is settling. Pundits have taken to noticing that not once has Mitt Romney publicly associated himself with the tea party, and few congressional candidates appear to be running on the tea party mantle. “Tea party thinking is dead,” declared the liberal Washington Post opinion writer E.J. Dionne last week, referring to Romney’s move the center in recent debates. Indeed, the tea party storm that hit the nation like Sandy two years ago seems to have retreated from view. Yet despite a year’s worth of polling showing voters less attached to tea party symbolism, there’s no indication that the politics insurgent GOP candidates brought with them are going anywhere. The persistence of these conservative politics is nowhere more clear than at the state level.

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