How Do You Like Your Tea?

She has explored witchcraft and condemns masturbation. Despite her unconventional past and viewpoints, the Delaware Republican Senate candidate for the past 2010 election, Christine O’Donnell, although she lost, was not at the margins of the political spectrum.

Instead, she was a prominent figure in a movement that took the midterm elections by storm: the Tea Party. Though elections are always surrounded by controversy, the rise of a stubbornly conservative force led to, and still remains, a concern for both Republicans and Democrats. Although the 2010 midterms elections are over, the Tea Party movement and the consequences of its popularity are certainly not.

For this past election, Republicans feared that Tea Party candidates were too radical to win the general election. Democrats, however, feared that anger towards the Democratic party would trump any concerns about the Tea Party’s dogmatism. They worried that people would simply vote against the incumbents and not concern themselves with individual candidates.

Adding to both parties’ concern is the effect the Tea Party will have in the long term: if the Tea Party’s influence continues into the 2012 presidential election, the entire political spectrum stands to shift right.

The Democratic Party did have some advantages in the election because of recent Tea Party nominations. Though Tea Party candidates such as Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle won the Republican primaries in their respective states, they effectively jeopardized what should have been easy Republican wins in the general election. Democrats who previously crossed party lines in previous elections to vote for an especially charismatic Republican candidate were lost to the Republican party due to the polarizing views of nominees such as O’Donnell. Furthermore, the Tea Party’s lack of a concrete political platform places their future influence and impact into jeopardy, having merely associated themselves with an array of different far-right policies.

The Tea Party’s recent rise to power indicates a larger shift in political direction. Though the Tea Party may be the most radical and vocal of the right, their support indicates that voters as a whole are now favoring more conservative policies. Perhaps in response to Obama’s more progressive policies, such as the hard-fought health care bill, many now fear too much government action. Just as the 1980’s saw a national shift to the right with overwhelming support for Ronald Reagan (he won 44 states), we too may be witnessing a new era of conservative politics.

In the 2012 Presidential election, it is likely that both Democratic and Republican candidates will attempt to appeal to conservative viewpoints usually relegated to fringe groups. In the past, more moderate candidates have had the support for party nominations (McCain versus Mitt Romney, Obama versus Clinton). However, perhaps as a result of the popularity of the new Tea Party movement, both real and perceived, we will begin to see the right-leaning candidates win the nominations in both parties. Though Tea Party candidates such as O’Donnell and Angle have invoked endless Saturday Night Live jokes for their sometimes laughable policies, perhaps the comedy will lose its humor as more and more candidates of a similar bent take power and steer the future direct of the United States. Time will tell.