The Tea Party train wreck that never happened

By: Noemie Emery Examiner Columnist

 

Three weeks ago, E.J. Dionne (or "Baghdad Bob," as James Taranto has called him) saw nothing but doom in the GOP's future, as "the Republican establishment ... is essentially powerless," having surrendered its soul to the evil Tea Party, which has driven the country to hell.

Events since have proved this judgment mistaken: The establishment lives, and is doing its duty; part of the Tea Party has been merging with it; and the "system" is working as planned.

What are the signs that the system is working? When the prospect of former House speaker Newt Gingrich as the presidential nominee of the Republican Party first appeared to be rising, first responders from all parts of the party rushed to their stations en masse.

Former House colleagues called him unstable. The National Review termed him "erratic." Ann Coulter called him all hat and no cattle. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., weighed in with a similar judgment.

Tea Party stars rushed to shore up Mitt Romney, the most probable Gingrich alternative. Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., had already endorsed him. Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C., now endorsed him. Christine O'Donnell, who unseated Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware's GOP Senate primary, endorsed the ex-moderate.

This was bad news for Dionne and his friends, who have waiting been three years for a Tea Party blowup (which they ought to know now is not likely to happen), and for the suicide wing of the conservative movement, which blames all its woes on establishment cunning, and calls the Coulters and Coburns RINOs and worse.

For the rest of the world, it was an unrelieved blessing. In a matter of days the Newt boom subsided, and the former speaker fell gently to Earth.

There are two stories here, which are interconnected, one being that the war between the Tea Party and the establishment has been overrated, or may not exist.

At first, the National Republican Senatorial Committee took sides against primary challengers, but dropped that stance quickly and welcomed Sen. Marco Rubio (who beat Charlie Crist) of Florida, Sen. Pat Toomey (who beat Arlen Specter) of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Rand Paul (who beat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's handpicked protegee) of Kentucky as the assets they turned out to be.

Tea Party stars are becoming Republican leaders, seeing the virtues of "nuance in politics," as Politico tells us of Rep. Allen West. Establishments die when they refuse to make changes; insurgencies die when they fail to discover that protest and governing are not the same things. The establishment altered, as did the insurgents. And then they moved on to Act Two.

Weeks before, when the primary race was still more chaotic, Daniel Henninger joined Robert Merry and others in lamenting the end of the old "smoke-filled rooms" of past generations, in which political fixers plucked out the unfit and ill-suited, based upon knowledge that they alone shared.

Party professionals controlled the selection, as Merry tells us, and "took very seriously" their critical function of weeding out "risks." With "risk" thus defined, Herman Cain and Rick Perry weeded themselves out without intervention.

"Risk" defined the lower-tier candidates, with no chance of succeeding. Then "risk" defined Newt, who looked to be surging, and the Establishment became its own smoke-filled room in the minute, wheeling out all of the heavy artillery to show the whole world the Gingrich it knew.

The establishment is the smoke-filled room of this era, and tea is served in it. Sorry, E.J., but your "train wreck" won't happen. That's what establishments do.

Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to TheWeekly Standard and author of "Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/12/tea-party-train-wreck-never-happened/2019601#ixzz1hePmpbjS

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