O'Donnell Tsunami

Wow. The Christine O'Donnell victory in the Delaware Republican primary for the United States Senate seat is having major fall out. It is also creating myths about the tea party and what the tea parties mean.

As for the fall out, Karl Rove's anti-O'Donnell excesses on the Sean Hannity show have caused his stock to drop precipitously. The tea party analyses are everywhere.

Let me add my small contribution.

The tea party is not an organization, it is a movement. It has brought together diverse folk who disagree on some things. Some these folks are truly on the fringe. The tea party folk uniformly see too much government and too much government spending as THE core issue of today. The lovers of big government are trying to divide the tea party based upon the differences on the fringe. They do not get it. Other differences don't matter. Until the excessive government and excessive spending problems appear to be under control, the other differences will not divide the tea partiers.

The tea parties will fall apart if government begins to shrink and spending begins to shrink. That is when they will turn their attentions to their various and diverse issues: abortion, firearms freedom and the like. Until then, the tea parties are united on the core issues and those issue are in the forefront. Until government and spending are reduced, the non-core issues will not tear the tea parties asunder.

The tea parties will be consistently anti-Obama only so long as Obama is the symbol of big government and big spending. If President Obama were to undergo a complete about-face, supporting Obamacare repeal, reducing government programs and reducing government spending, he would enjoy tea party support. Not gonna happen, though. He can't change that much.