I'm curious to see what happens to these bombastic tea partiers once they get in. My prediction is that most of them will morph into garden-variety Republicans, a few will stir the pot a bit, but ultimately, there will still be near-100% ideological purity within the GOP caucus and almost no split votes on any bills of substance.
Holy cow, was I wrong on this one! It turns out that the tea partiers are abandoning their principles and adopting standard GOP doubletalk on spending
before they arrive in Washington:
Dr. Rand Paul, Revolutionary Outsider (February)
"The Tea Party movement is an effort to get government under control,” Rand said. “I’m running to represent Kentuckians and to dismantle the culture of professional politicians in Washington. Leadership isn’t photo-ops with oversized fake cardboard checks. That kind of thinking is bankrupting our nation.”
Senator-elect Rand Paul, now:
In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad “symbol” of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. “I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he says.
I'm actually a bit conflicted on this, because I actually agree with Paul's statement that spending earmarks are mostly symbolic, being such a small portion of our overall spending. Then again, I didn't run a senatorial campaign explicitly opposed to earmarks.
All politicians are hypocrites, but this may just take the cake as one of the most brazenly hypocritical about-faces I've seen in a long time.
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