Could the Tea Party break up into warring factions?

By Richard K. Barry

If one part of the plan for Democrats to hold onto the Senate in 2012 is for them to retain the seats they already have, Nebraska may present a problem.

Democrat Ben Nelson was first elected to the Senate from Nebraska by a slim margin of 50.9 to 49.1 in 2000 and then held the seat in 2006 with a more comfortable split of 63.9 to 36, but in 2012 the early indications are not good as Nelson is considered by many to be one of the more vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

To make matters worse, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is in the race for the Republicans and as of Wednesday has the endorsement of the Tea Party Express, which not only makes him the obvious front runner for the GOP nomination, but could make it less likely that there will be a split on the right between a Tea Partier and a more mainstream Republican candidate. Or will it?

Turns out that local Tea Party activists in Nebraska are pretty grumpy about the way the Tea Party Express swooped in and endorsed Bruning without much or even any consultation with the locals. From my perspective that breaks one of the central tenets of politics: don't piss off your friends unless you absolutely have to. Yup, new political movement making rookie mistakes. Good to see, at least in this case.

You may recall that the Tea Party Express is a national organization with money and some political clout that has become heavily involved in the national political scene over the past couple of years for the hyper-conservative side.

According to Jim Mason, Nebraska state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots:

They didn't talk to any other candidates that we are aware of, they sure as heck didn't talk to any other Tea Partiers in Nebraska. This was kind of an out of the clear blue sky type announcement. Actually, I think this endorsement is going to hurt Bruning in a way.

What is interesting about this is that in 2010 the Tea Party Express backed a group of quite marginal candidates who had radical ring-wing ideas, even loony positions. As we know, this led to defeat for some of their handpicked candidates, people like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, as well as Joe Miller in Alaska. All three took what could have been easy wins and turned them into loses.

Clearly the national power behind the Tea Party Express doesn't want this to happen again as is apparent by comments made by a spokesman for them, Sal Russo, who hinted to the National Journal that they were enthusiastically backing Bruning because they see him as electable. In other words, they don't want to make any mistakes with wacko candidates and they are willing to be seriously heavy-handed to make sure.

So, the folks from out of state are trying to tell the locals who their Republican candidate should be, this in a seat they may well be able to take from the Democrats.

One of the first things that happens when a political movement has some success is that some group from elsewhere wants to come in and push people around. Then the natives get pissed off and push back, either by sitting on their hands during the campaign or maybe backing a third party candidate, in other words, by not doing what they are told.

Is the resentment in Nebraska going to lead anywhere? I don't know. Tea Partiers certainly pride themselves in their independence -- isn't that the whole Revolutionary War-loving ethos of the movement? Is the national group going to come into other states and do the same things, creating resentment and an even more fractured conservative movement in their wake?

Up until now we thought the split on the right would be between the Tea Party and establishment Republicans. I don't know if I saw the possibility for an additional split between national and local organizations of Tea Party activists.

Maybe Ben Nelson has a chance after all.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)