Why has The Tea Party Disappeared?

2014 Mid-Terms Part III

Why has The Tea Party Disappeared?

The outcome of the mid-terms next month remain clear where the House of Representatives is concerned. Republicans will stay in power but will they gain the six seats needed to regain control of the Senate? Too close to call.

My attention is elsewhere. There seems to be an indelible rule that what America does is followed by the Brits ten years later. I saw my first Styrofoam mug in 1970. Suddenly, in 1980, they were in all the shops here. Likewise, jeans and T shirts, the stable fashion-wear for American teenagers in the 1950s and 60s, didn’t hit these shores in large numbers until the early 1970s.

How have I arrived at this piece of nostalgia? The United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, has been around for many years. Of late, its charismatic leader, Nigel Farrage, has received a plethora of media attention. He’s ‘Unreconstructed Man Personified,’ for example he enjoys being photographed smoking a cigarette and holding a pint of beer. How politically incorrect can you be? He’s a man of the people and talks straight, or so his supporters would have it. What these supporters won’t accept and what the media won’t say is that for Farrage, politics is an open playing field. He can say whatever he wants because he’ll never be challenged in government. There is more chance of England winning the soccer World Cup in 2018 than UKIP having any serious level of political power.

Farrage, the political Mad Hatter, has seen his fortunes rise as UKIP recently claimed its first Member of Parliament. In contrast, the Tea Party in America has dropped out of sight. No one on this side of the pond had heard of the Tea Party until the mid-term election of 2010. Suddenly a group of slightly elderly men and women, mostly white and Republican, with money to spend on politics, got themselves noticed and became the darlings of the American media.

Tea Partiers were helped by wealthy Americans of the gun-toting, rugged individualism variety. Politicians of the ilk of Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin weighed in. What was their agenda? It was hard to analyse but it could be summed up in a word, “No.” No to federal government spending on the poor, no to universal healthcare, no to anything which might impact their wallets and no to anything that might impinge on freedom. These people saw a broken nation and felt they were getting shafted by economic and social change. They wanted the old America back where whites were on top, where welfare would be cut to the bone and where the federal government’s activities would be limited to defence.

Sadly, the Tea Partiers didn’t help themselves. I watched an elderly lady being interviewed. The reporter asked about healthcare. “What do you think of Obamacare?” “Shameful,” came the reply. “People should look after and pay for themselves and not look to government for help.” The reporter pressed on. “What do you think of Medicare? Should that go too?” The lady looked shocked. “Of course not, that’s an entitlement.”

My analysis is that there will always be a percentage of the electorate who are angry and demonstrate their fury in a protest vote. Eventually, any political party which bases its policies on appealing to protest alone will fail, unless it operates within a Proportional Representation system where it might pick up a few seats.

The Tea Party is no longer attractive because it has no policies to fix America’s problems. “No” to everything isn’t a policy. It’s merely political poison. The American public has seen through the veil of anger, at least insofar as Tea Party candidates are concerned, thus they will not signify in the election next month.

As the Tea Party is on its way out, we Brits are watching UKIP rise. To put it accurately, the media is reporting on UKIP every day. It’s a great story. Yesterday, a poll in The Observer suggested that one third of the electorate would vote UKIP if they believed there was a chance of the UKIP candidate winning. What the polls never ask is, “what do you think of UKIP policies?” UKIP want withdrawal from the European Union and a closure of our shores to immigrants. As to the former, it’s a popular policy. The mandarins of Europe have made the body unpopular, despite the clear benefits of membership. UKIP also forgets that this country has been built with the help of immigrants.

The media airtime and space given to UKIP is totally disproportional to its importance. It may pick up a seat or two before our General Election in 2015 but will it gain a significant number of seats? I strongly doubt it. Will UKIP draw a sufficient number of votes from Conservative or Labour to spoil their chances? If the election was tomorrow, it would but there are seven months to go.

In those seven months, UKIP will be tested on policies beyond withdrawal from the EC and immigration. What do Mr Farrage and his colleagues have to say about the economy? What is his party’s taxation policy? How would he fund the National Health Service? UKIP has had a good run but tough political times are ahead and the public aren’t fools. UKIP, look at the Tea Party and weep. Your 15 minutes of fame are almost up. 

It has to be said that the Tea Party and UKIP have moved the Republican Party and the Conservative Party to the right. I regard this as bad news for both because time and again, the Party that holds the centre wins.

Ben Bradlee

Ben Bradlee, left, with Katharine Graham in 1971

 This morning, I have a lump in my throat. Ben Bradlee passed away last night. Ben was the editor-in-chief of The Washington Post in 1972, when the Watergate burglary took place. With support from Katherine Graham, the owner of The Post, Bradlee encouraged two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, to follow the story. Graham herself emphasised that Bradlee was “the classic leader at whose desk the buck of responsibility stopped.” Although it was The New York Times that first exposed a link between the burglars and the White House, the story went cold and the only newspaper to keep it going was The Post.

Bradlee received many honours for his work. The Post was awarded a Pullitzer Prize for its reporting on Watergate. Just recently, President Obama presented Bradlee himself with The Presidential Medal of Freedom. All this and more can be read in the many obituaries that will be published in the days to come.

In 2003, I was an undergraduate at Brunel University. (Yes, I was a mature student, although I admit I was overripe category!) For my dissertation, I chose Watergate. To be precise, I posed the question whether Nixon’s resignation of the presidency in 1974 was a direct result of constitutional process or a lucky circumstance.

One afternoon, I was in the basement coffee room of the offices of Life Magazine in Mayfair, reading back issues from the 1970s. A journalist came into the room and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he replied, “pity you weren’t here two weeks ago. Ben Bradlee was in town.” I replied that I thought he had died. “Common mistake,” came the answer, “Jason Robards bit the dust, not Ben.” Robards had played Bradlee in the movie All the President’s Men.”

My wife and I had a trip to America planned for that fall, so I wrote to Ben, asking if would let me interview him. Eventually, he agreed to give me 30 minutes early one afternoon. I had to travel from New York to DC by train. A hurricane two days previously had closed the airports. After a four hour journey, I arrived in good time at The Post’s office in F Street, armed with tape recorder and three tapes (just in case), pen and pad, (in case of recording malfunction and a camera. I sat outside Ben’s office, waiting for him to return from lunch. I had my back to him as he walked along the corridor. For an unaccountable reason, I knew he was walking towards me for 15 seconds before I saw him.

The 30 minute interview lasted for almost two hours. His large office had bookcases filled to bursting, flat surfaces had many pictures but not many of the great and good but mostly his family. He had a gruff voice, which was familiar to me, having watched Jason Robards’ portrayal shortly before I left London. Although now in his 80s, he was still a powerful man.

Ben let me tape the conversation. I re-read the transcript this morning. There are memorable passages. For example, of Bob Woodward, Bradlee puts it succinctly: “Woodward has ears that can hear a pheasant break wind at a hundred yards.” Talking about the evolving of the Watergate scandal, Ben categorised it: “God, it never got worse, it always got better, that story, and we are very dogged. I am more dogged than intellectual.”

The part I enjoyed was when I played Devil’s advocate and suggested that Nixon had so many big guns pointed at him, no one could have survived the onslaught. Bradlee leapt on my remark: “Nixon was plainly guilty. He did it, he did it. The Nixon failure after doing it was that the cover up did not work and the press was responsible for that.”

That day I was treated to a two-hour lesson in living history. What a privilege. But, sadly, in all the excitement, I forgot to have a photograph taken!

I gained the lasting impression that Ben Bradlee was truly a force of nature. He had a presence that verged on the electric. His track record as a newspaperman established that he had good and sound judgment, he was loyal both to those who worked for him and for whom he worked, he was a man of principle and a person who exemplified the finest traditions of journalism.

Ben Bradlee, you will be missed.

The 2014 Mid-Terms Part II. Where are the President’s Coat-Tails?

 In four weeks, America goes to the polls. If a British voter was shown an American voting form, confusion would run amok. Americans vote for all manner of offices, not just seats in the US and State Congresses and Capitols. They vote for judges, sheriffs and yes, even dog-catchers. This is democracy in action.

Mid-term elections are often posed as judgments on the record of the administration and its chief executive. In many mid-term elections, the President and his party receive a slap in the face from the voters. In 1946, Harry Truman saw his party’s majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives disappear. The new Republican Congress’s first act of business was to pass legislation, repeated in the 22^nd Amendment, term-limiting all presidents after Truman. In 2006, George W. Bush saw his Congressional majorities crumble. He was a two-year lame duck.

Americans have a wonderful, old-fashioned expression to assess a President’s popularity; it is a metaphor based on coat-tails, the attire of men in public office in the 19^th century. If the coat-tails are said to be “long,” it means the President is regarded by the public as successful and candidates from his party will seek his personal support. If the coat-tails are “short,” as in 1946 and 2006, candidates from the administration’s party seek to distance themselves from the chief executive. Sadly, this year Mr Obama’s coat-tails don’t seem to exist.

Elections for House of Representatives seats are often governed by local issues but this year seems to be dominated by the perceived lack-lustre second term presidency. There can be no real expectation by the Democrats that they will recover the House of Representatives. The fight is for control of the Senate, where the pundits suggest the Republicans will gain a small majority. The Republicans need to win six seats to gain control but the overall result is still too close to call. States like North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia and Colorado are in play.

What the Democrats need is the October Surprise. Let’s play the “what if” game. What would happen if:

·         US unemployment dropped below 6%, as more jobs are created as a result of administration policy.

·         Sales of new homes rise, proving a revival in the US economy.

·         Growth in new car sales, showing Americans are willing to spend on home-manufactured goods.

·         The US economy is proved to be motoring along and doing far better that the economies of China, Japan and the European Union.

·         More than 7 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare.

·         Low inflation and a strong dollar keeps interests rates low and helps business.

None of the above comes within “what if” because all of them have already occurred. Under Mr Obama, the economy, business atmosphere and access to healthcare have improved for the vast majority of Americans. However, the perception is otherwise. And in politics, perception trumps reality.

What can the President do to lengthen his coat tails? An American led victory over IS would help but this is highly unlikely to happen by November. America and most of its coalition partners will not commit ground forces. Détente with Russia, with Russian forces leaving Ukraine (not the Crimea) might help but would this occur within the next four weeks? I think not! Once again, the perception in America is a failure of leadership by its administration. The President talks about leadership but politicians are judged not on what they say but what they do.

The state of Iowa has a tight Senate race. Joni Ernst, the Republican candidate, has borrowed a plot from Series 7 of The West Wing, when the Democratic presidential nominee, Matt Santos, took time out from the campaign to do his duty as a retired USAF pilot and be re-trained. From trailing in the polls, the Santos character got a huge boost. Life has imitated art, as Ernst has spent two weeks on duty with the Iowa National Guard. The Iowa voters see this as an act of leadership and have given her a six point lead in the polls.

Would it help the Democratic cause if the President took a week out doing military training? As Mr Obama did not serve in the forces, the option is not open to him. Sadly, in both electoral and poker terms, he is looking like a busted flush.