Tea Party a Thorn in Side of Republicans, Dems Alike

Emboldened by Tuesday's stunning midterm rout of Democrats, the Tea Party movement promises a clash with U.S. President Barack Obama, but an equally consequential battle looms between far-right lawmakers and their Republican leaders.

Several conservatives backed by the small-government, anti-tax movement who romped to election victory after campaigning on pledges to repeal or defund the controversial Affordable Care Act, scrap government departments like the Environmental Protection Agency, and fight Obama tooth and nail over funding government.

When the new lawmakers take up their posts in eight weeks, will they join conservative agitators like Senator Ted Cruz and the so-called "hell no" caucus that has angered House Speaker John Boehner, a fellow Republican?

Or will they fall into line behind Boehner and incoming Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell as the party seeks to prove it can govern ahead of 2016's presidential elections?

For a sense of how core Tea Partiers frame the argument, a listen to conservative radio host Mark Levin, whose three-hour daily show is hugely popular, is instructive.

Even as Republicans cheered snatching the Senate majority from Democrats, Levin blasted McConnell as a traitor after the Republican lawmaker signaled Wednesday he would not let political gridlock trigger a government shutdown or default on national debt.

McConnell and Boehner are acutely aware that Republicans were widely blamed 13 months ago when feuding lawmakers brought government screeching to a halt over funding disputes.

But the shutdown "had no effect whatsoever" on the elections, "and yet the Republican leadership is... still scared of it," Levin insisted.

"How are we ever going to get our financial house in order if we do not use the power of the purse?"

Levin pushes a theme resonating after the election: Republicans this year ran united as conservatives, and their agenda should not shift to accommodate the establishment.

"The voters who voted for these candidates are not going to stand for 'business as usual' from Republicans campaigning as conservatives and then governing as moderates," said Brent Bozell, who chairs the conservative group ForAmerica.

"That is simply dishonest."

The establishment, symbolized by McConnell, who is loathed by some far-right conservatives, believed it had squashed Tea Party influence last year after the disastrous shutdown.

But the movement, seeing its favored Senate candidates like Iowa's Joni Ernst, Montana's Steve Daines and Nebraska's Ben Sasse prevail, believes it is winning the battle of ideas in the heartland, and that the Republican takeover of Congress validates their strategy.

"Now is the time for Republicans to come together in unity to stand as one, to stand for principle," said Cruz, a Texas Republican who has repeatedly called for the repeal of Obamacare.

Obama would veto that legislation, of course. But such show votes would help conservatives flex their muscles and lay groundwork for the next presidential race, which Cruz is expected to enter.

Whether Tea Party conservatives can find any common ground with Democrats or with their own leadership is a key question for Congress when it opens January 3.

"We know it's going to be very, very conservative, more conservative than in the past," Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute think-tank told AFP.

"What we don't know is, how much despite that, there will still be some policy accomplishments."

Iowa State University Professor Steffen Schmidt, a longtime political watcher, sees no let up from the likes of Cruz, an insurgent whose main success in Congress has been insurgency itself.

In 2013 "Ted Cruz raised hell... and paralyzed the Senate," Schmidt told AFP.

"It wasn't a sideshow. That was a mark of honor in which he resisted the establishment and the Democrats and his own party's leadership. And I don't think that's going to go away."

With the midterms in the rear view mirror, McConnell warned those who might want to force Obama to veto bill after bill, producing yet more gridlock.

"When the American people chose divided government, I don't think it means they don't want us to do anything," he said.

The party's ability to unify its members will be put to the test, with the 2015 budget needing adoption in the coming months.

"We'll have to see how some of these newbies who gave McConnell his majority -- do they position themselves based on their true deep-down beliefs, or as pragmatists who can see that Americans actually want some cooperation between Congress and Obama," Schmidt said.