“We’re switching from roles as activists to campaigners,” said Susan McLaughlin, a leader of the Liberty Twp. Tea Party.
Local Democrats said they believe the movement has already peaked and political experts don’t expect the conservative group to gain traction for the presidential election.
Lebanon Tea Party member Walt Davis said when Lebanon’s Tea Party began, it was comprised of 200 “angry and frightened” people. Since 2010, that number has tapered off to 50-60, but the group works together in a more quiet but directed way.
“In order to move the pendulum just a little bit, it takes a lot of work,” Davis noted.
Tea Party members said they are still a force to be reckoned with in campaigns, citing the defeats of Indiana Senator Dick Lugar and U.S. House of Rep. Jean Schmidt of Cincinnati as two examples where Tea Party backed candidates — Richard Mourdock and Brad Wenstrup, respectively — ousted established Washington politicians.
“It’s difficult to say how much an effect the Tea Party will have on the general election,” said Patrick Miller, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. Studies have shown that the most active Tea Party members would be people who were already involved in campaigning, Miller said.
“They are going to vote but the majority would have voted anyway. That being said, you can see them mattering in Republican primaries, like the Indiana Senate Race where Tea Party affiliates can come together and say ‘this is the Republican spirit I support,’” Miller said.
One of the biggest qualities that could hinder the Tea Party movement is one of its defining mantras.
“There is a definite tension between a centralized organizing body trying to gain control and local activists who refuse to recognize that body as their ‘leaders,’” Miller said. “One of their basic tenets is ‘We don’t like DC, we don’t like government. We want local control. Decentralization is good.”
Chris Littleton, a former leader of the Cincinnati Tea Party who is now the Ohio Director of American Majority, cited the November passage of Issue 3, a state-wide initiative that rejected several tenets of the Obama-sponsored health care reforms, as a “defining moment” in what this new Tea Party has become and can accomplish.
“We have to pick a highly targeted objective and go after it,” Littleton said. “That’s how you can effect change in this country.”
Democratic leaders in the area said they are not convinced the Tea Party will prove to be much of a force in the 2012 presidential election.
“I think they were at their strongest in 2010,” said Bethe Goldenfield, chairwoman of the Warren County Democratic Party. “It’s not that they aren’t strong now, but I don’t see them doing more than what happened then.”
The Democrats in Warren County have a similar strategy of door-to-door conversation, Goldenfield said.
“Our goal is to hold the line and increase our margins from last time,” Goldenfield said.
McLaughlin said voters will ultimately decide for change.
“In 2008, people voted for what they thought was the best choice,” said McLaughlin. “It’s difficult to have a one-on-one conversation about that in a rally. We’re going to travel door-to-door and talk to people, ask them ‘Did you get what you asked for from the 2008 election? Did you get a lemon?’ We want to have a serious, intelligent dialogue about the issues and where we, as the local Tea Party, stand on them.”
George Nafziger, vice president of the West Chester Tea Party, said his organization is preparing to disperse more than 12,000 pieces of campaign literature and go door-to-door to hand them out.
“The pieces cover things that occurred during Obama’s administration that we believe are wrong and even unconstitutional,” Nafziger said.
Tom Zawistowski, president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, a loose affiliation of Tea Parties around the state of Ohio, sees the Tea Party movement as citizens reengaging their responsibilities as citizens to work with governments.
“People are saying we’re not as visible as we were two year ago, but that’s because we’re actively engaged with governance,” Zawistowski said.
Zawistowski said he has been engaged for months trying to determine what actions Tea Parties can and cannot undertake in a national election.
“The rules are daunting and designed to keep the average citizen from participation,” Zawistowski said. “I’ve been working with lawyers for months trying to understand the system for a federal election.”
Tea Party leaders disagree on what the nomination of Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate will mean for the general election. For many, the dislike of Obama and his policies will drive the Tea Party electorate to push for his ouster.
“I think the Tea Party is very pragmatic,” Nafziger said. “We look at Romney — even if he isn’t a perfect candidate — as infinitely superior to Obama. Even if we’re not exactly pro-Romney, we’re wildly anti-Obama.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4544 or jmcclelland@coxohio.com.
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