From the UK Telegraph: Midterm elections 2010: Prepare for a new American revolution

[Logan Darklighter]

FINALLY! Someone actually GETS what the Tea Parties are about!
Janet Daley's Column in the UK Telegraph

In New York last week I was struck by the startling shift of mood since my
last visit, during Barack Obama's first year in office. This phenomenon took
varying forms, of course, depending on the political orientation of my
interlocutor, but the underlying theme of despair and disgust was almost
universal. Liberal Democrats (who hugely outnumber most other factions in
that city) were despondent and disappointed with the collapse of Obama's
popularity. A few of them (remarkably few, actually) were ready to blame
this on a "Right-wing conspiracy" of vaguely racist motivation.
But most of them were frankly critical of the strategic mistakes they
believed the White House had made, and the baffling inability of their
President to connect with the people in an engaging way. His shocking lack
of emotional expression during last month's commemoration of 9/11 – a point
of particular significance to New Yorkers – was remarked upon by a number of
people I met.

My Republican friends, perhaps surprisingly, were not gloating. They were too
furious. But contrary to the superficial British assumption (heavily
promoted by the BBC), they were not devoting their excoriation exclusively
to the Obama Administration – or even to its clique of Congressional
henchmen, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. That they were opposed to the
Big State, European social democratic model of government which Obama had
imported to Washington went almost without saying. But they were at least as
angry with the leadership of their own party for having conceded far too
much of the argument.

And this anger – again, contrary to the general understanding in Britain – is
not new: it goes all the way back to the Bush presidency. It was widely
known in Europe that the American Left hated George Bush (and even more,
Dick Cheney) because of his military adventurism. What was less understood
was that the Right disliked him almost as much for selling the pass over
government spending, bailing out the banks, and failing to keep faith with
the fundamental Republican principle of containing the power of central
government.

So the Republicans are, if anything, as much in revolt against the
establishment within their own party as they are against the Democrats. And
this is what the Tea Parties (which should always be referred to in the
plural, because they are not a monolithic movement) are all about: they are
not just a reaction against a Left-liberal president but a repudiation of
the official Opposition as well.

Nor are they simply the embodiment of reactionary social conservatism, which
has been the last redoubt of the traditional Republican Right. There were
plenty of people in New York who wanted to believe that Tea Partiers were
just a new incarnation of the gun-totin', gay-bashing right-to-lifers whom
they found it so easy to dismiss as risible throwbacks. This is a huge
political miscalculation, which quite misses the point of what makes the
Congressional midterm elections this week such an interesting and historic
political event. This is so much more than the predictable to-ing and
fro-ing of party control midway through a presidential term. What the
grassroots rebellion is really about is an attempt to pull the Republican
party back to its basic philosophy of low-tax, low-spend, small government:
the great Jeffersonian principle that the best government is that which
governs least.

As some astute commentators have observed, the ascendancy of the Tea Parties
has meant that fiscal conservatism can replace social conservatism as the raison
d'être of the Republican cause. So rather than being a threat to
Republicanism, the election of Tea Party candidates might be its salvation.
It represents a rank-and-file rejection of what many Americans see as a
conspiracy of the governing elite against ordinary working people. All of
which makes clearer the appeal of even the naivety and inexperience of some
of the Tea Party contenders who have challenged incumbent Republican
candidates. If what you are rebelling against is a generation of smug,
out-of-touch professional politicians, then a little dose of amateurishness
or innocence might strike you as positively refreshing. (In a poll last
week, more than 50 per cent of voters said that they would be more willing
this year than usual to vote for someone with little political experience.)

Read the whole thing. It's about as well-reasoned an analysis as you are likely to find. Much more than you'll likely find in any American media outlet on either political side.

[Ayiekie]

This would be awesome if it were true. Unfortunately, it isn't. While the Tea Party broadly believes in lowering taxes and not giving government money to bail out corporations (although the latter belief doesn't hold up to well in practice), that is the extent of their libertarian bona fides. They are (in general) pro-military expenditures, socially-conservative, very religious, support the American surveillance state, and so on and so forth. Also, the fact that Tea Party-endorsed candidates are pretty much invariably less popular and electable than generic Republicans would be (even though several of them will still win in a year where it's very easy to knock off Democrats) means that it is highly unlikely for the GOP to willingly follow their electoral lead.

Also, Obama's in the dumps because the economy is. Just like Reagan was in 1982; and just like Reagan, his communication skills don't find any purchase because Americans without jobs don't want to hear it. And also just like Reagan, if the economy's perked up in two years he'll coast to reelection (but if it doesn't, and a divisive extremist like Palin is the Republican nominee, things might get interesting). Much as some people would like to think Obama's strategy is at fault, and much as some want to think his "liberal" agenda is at fault, and much as I'd like to believe it's because he's a lying authoritarian murderous shitbag, the real truth is that Americans by and large don't care about any of that. The unemployment rate is what's sinking his party, and everything else is a sideshow.

[Dartz]

The thing with things like unemployment rates is that it takes years for that to change.

What were people expecting when they elected Obama... magic improvement and a full recovery by the end of the year? It's funny. If people vote Republican, the Rep's will get into power just as any positive (or negative) effects of Obama's policies begin to show themselves and have an effect.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Ayiekie]

Yep, they pretty much were. Also, people have the attention span of goldfish. Most Americans don't even remember anymore that the bailout was a (strongly bipartisan supported) Bush initiative, not the baby of Obama and the Democrats. Not that it would matter if they did. Reagan harped about how he was dealing with the mess Carter left him, and things take time, blah blah blah, and that didn't stop him from getting smoked in 1982 and all the pundits predicting he was an out-of-touch sure-fire one-termer (it's also pretty much what happened to Clinton in 1994, right down to predictions about how his presidency was also finished).

[Logan Darklighter]

Yep, they pretty much were. Also, people have the attention span of goldfish. Most Americans don't even remember anymore that the bailout was a (strongly bipartisan supported) Bush initiative, not the baby of Obama and the Democrats.

If you'd been paying closer attention (both to what this article was saying, and to the tea parties in general) you'd notice that most Tea Party participants  DID remember that very point, and are not happy with the Republican establishment (or Bush) on that point. They're largely voting Republican in the general election because it's realistically the only real option at this point. But the tea parties made their voices heard loudly and to the detriment of the Republican party elite in the primary elections. Much to those 'elites' dismay. Because they had their own ideas about who was 'electable'. Look at Karl Rove's reaction to Christine O'Donnell's victory. He made as ass of himself going after her! And many if not most rank and file Republicans have turned on him as a result.
That's the system in this country as it stands. In the general election, you rarely get exactly what you're looking for. If you REALLY want to change things, do it in the Primary elections. And that's largely where the Tea Parties concentrated.

[Ayiekie]

Neither most Tea Partiers, nor most Republicans, nor most Democrats remembered that very point, regardless of what you'd like to believe.
There is no partisan divide on ignorance here.
And of course, if fiscal responsibility was actually the primary concern of the Tea Party, they would not have been founded primarily in opposition to a President from the party that last balanced the budget, nor would the vast majority of them think that the party that turned that balanced budget into the largest deficit in the history of the country was "realistically the only real option" (Reagan also ran up a horrible deficit, as did Bush I to a slightly lesser degree). They are largely voting Republican because they are aligned on other views (60% of self-described Tea Party members, for instance, say they favour "government based on Christian principles", and 82% of them say that the Republican party represents their views either "Moderately Well" or "Very Well"), not because the Republicans are even slightly credible as the party of fiscal responsibility.
And you're ignoring that the "elites" ideas on who was electable were correct. Christine O'Donnell is going to lose the race, and any generic Republican in her place would have won it. Same goes for Jim Miller (in fact, there's a good chance the generic Republican he replaced will STILL win it), and while Angle is probably going to beat Reid, polls consistently show it would be "definitely" rather than "probably" if it was a non-TP Republican in her place.
So no, they're not going to change much, other than losing a few races Republicans had no business losing in these midterms and quite possibly the next election as well. But then, why would they? "Fiscal responsibility" as code for "lower my taxes and cut social
services, especially the ones I don't personally use" is not exactly a shocking new viewpoint on
the American political scene, to say the least.