Isn’t it likely that — if the defining difference between the two sides is the insider vs. outsider schism — that the “ruling class” (the “establishment”) would necessarily have the upper hand against an outsider in a race which, by definition, consists of members of a pretty exclusive club?
Isn’t this a Catch-22 that excludes genuine tea party favorites from ever being selected for leadership? If Raul Labrador had spent the last four years in Congress climbing the greasy pole of politics, backslapping and horse trading with enough of his colleagues to win the majority leader post, wouldn’t that, in and of itself, have disqualified him from being the tea party guy?
Do they want to remain a revolutionary force, or actually govern? And can outsiders become insiders without losing their outsiderness? These are the kinds of questions the tea party activists must wrestle with as they enter the next stage of development — how to actually govern after they win.
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