Until 8 p.m. includes Twin Cities area

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

WASHINGTON (AP) - The rising profiles of Republican presidential
candidates Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are giving the White
House a new opening: linking the entire GOP field to the tea party,
whose popularity has recently sagged.


      If the strategy works, it could cause guilt-by-association
problems even for non-tea-party Republicans like Mitt Romney.


      That might be a lot to ask, however. Unflattering comparisons
are a well-worn campaign tactic, and many Americans have only a
hazy notion of the tea party movement. Still, President Barack
Obama's top aides are giving it a go.


      Republican candidates must decide whether to "swear allegiance
to the tea party" or work with Democrats to create jobs, Obama
campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. After last week's GOP
debate in Iowa, Obama campaign guru David Axelrod claimed the
presidential contenders were "pledging allegiance to the tea
party."


      And a new video by the Democratic National Committee says
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are "embracing
extreme tea party policies."


      Democrats first aimed such barbs at congressional Republicans,
who hewed closely to tea party demands in shaping a debt-ceiling
bill this month. It was harder to target the presidential field as
long as attention centered largely on former governors Romney, Tim
Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman. All three are conservatives but not from
the tea party mold, which places greater emphasis on uncompromising
demands for unusually deep cuts in government spending and
oversight.


      A quick succession of events changed that over the weekend.


      Bachmann, the House member from Minnesota who chairs Congress'
tea party caucus, won an Iowa straw poll. Pawlenty ended his
campaign, and Perry, the Texas governor with tea party leanings,
jumped in.


      Romney, whose presumed GOP front-runner status looks shakier
than before, is responding by edging toward tea party positions,
opening himself to the Democrats' broad-brush criticisms.


      At last week's Iowa debate, for instance, Romney joined all the
others in saying he would reject a debt-reduction package if it
included as much as $1 in tax increases for every $10 in spending
cuts.


      "That's just not common sense," Obama told a Minnesota crowd
on Tuesday.


      The grass-roots, decentralized tea party movement sprung to life
in 2009 to oppose Obama's health care initiative, then swung its
focus to cutting taxes and spending. It helped Republicans win huge
victories in 2010, and now it's playing an early and potent role in
the GOP presidential process.


      As the movement asserts its clout, however, its popularity has
dropped.


      A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 40 percent of
American adults had a "not favorable" view of the tea party,
compared with 18 percent in an earlier poll. The proportion who
said they knew too little to form an opinion of the tea party fell
to 21 percent, from an earlier 46 percent.


      At the same time, Obama's approval ratings also have slumped,
and Congress' have hit an all-time low.


      Tying a political opponent to a not-so-popular person or
movement is a hit-or-miss strategy, said John J. Pitney Jr., a
political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. Bill Clinton's
1996 re-election campaign ran ads against "DoleGingrich." The
goal was to link GOP nominee Bob Dole to Newt Gingrich, then the
embattled House speaker, and now a presidential candidate.


      The tea party could be a tougher target, Pitney said. "A
diffuse movement with no clear leader does not arouse the same kind
of emotion," he said.


      Mike DuHaime, who managed Republican Rudy Giuliani's 2008
presidential campaign, said the Democrats' tactic might succeed so
long as Romney and the other GOP candidates seem to be toeing the
tea party line.


      "The strategy is sound for the Obama team because they would
love the campaign to be about the challenger, no matter who it
is," DuHaime said. "To the extent that our candidates continue to
essentially march in lockstep with each other on major issues, it
will be easy for the Obama campaign to paint them all with the same
brush."


      Obama had a rare direct brush with a tea partyer this week while
shaking hands in Iowa. Activist Ryan Rhodes complained about
reports that Vice President Joe Biden had said tea partyers acted
"like terrorists" in the debt-ceiling showdown.


      Obama said Biden "was objecting to us almost defaulting" on
U.S. debts. When Rhodes persisted, Obama told him "it doesn't
sound like you are interested in listening."


      Earlier, the president portrayed himself as a pragmatic
problem-solver who might appeal to independent voters wary of the
tea party's conservative fervor.


      "I make no apologies for being reasonable," Obama told the
Iowa crowd.
      

Gallery

Politics and Government News

Tea party followers helped Republicans win huge
victories in 2010, and now it's playing an early and potent role in the GOP presidential process. As the movement asserts its clout, however, its popularity has dropped.

White House paints GOP field with tea party brush

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox