November’s election hangover was still reverberating for 15 tea party faithful who recently met in a Forsyth County recreation center with Martha Zoller, the talk radio host who ran unsuccessfully last year for Congress. Over the squeaks of sneakers on a nearby basketball court, she offered a mix of therapy and pep talk.
“You’re not going to win every time you get out there,” Zoller told the crowd. “But it doesn’t mean you quit. It doesn’t mean you stop doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean you take your ball and go home.”
The tea party movement’s popularity across the nation has waned considerably, but the groups are still an undeniable force in Georgia. Their supporters helped sink the one percent transportation sales tax in metro Atlanta, fueled this year’s push for tougher ethics rules and likely staved off a vote in the Legislature on a new Falcons stadium.
Now backers of the loosely organized conservative movement are hustling to take advantage of a substantial electoral opportunity. Next year’s retirement of Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and the chain reaction of state and congressional seats likely to open in its wake present a chance for tea party groups to flex their muscles anew in Georgia.
“It’s amazing that the tea party is still even active after this election,” said Brandon Welborn, a 30-year-old rank-and-file tea party supporter in Habersham County. “But we’re trying to wait it out and try to figure out the best action we can take to deter the policies to be implemented by the Obama administration.”
They’ll face spirited resistance from the Republican establishment. The deep-pocketed American Crossroads group, co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove, has vowed to spend millions to back more “electable” candidates in Republican Senate primaries after high-profile flops last year helped Democrats maintain control of the chamber.
Tea party adherents are attempting to fight back in kind. They’re launching a project to organize across the state, down to the block-captain level in some county precincts. They’re beginning to recruit potential candidates for more state and federal openings. And, perhaps most importantly, they’re reminding supporters they need more than just their voices.
“We’ve got to learn how to not only volunteer but to give money,” said Zoller at the Forsyth County Tea Party Patriot Alliance’s monthly meeting. “I hate to be so gauche as to always be talking about money, but it is about money.”
Governor, legislators listen
Some Republicans blame the tea party for the GOP’s undoing in 2012, arguing that the movement’s gravitational pull yanked presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and others too far to the right to win a general election. After Obama’s victory, commentators declared the tea party’s demise, and polls showed tea party support down to the single digits.
Democrats, who gleefully watched the intraparty squabbling, are eager to cast the tea party as a foil. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a memo to lawmakers that he expects his party’s push to regain control of the House next year to “send the tea party to the dustbin of political history.”
The tea party’s influence in Georgia makes for a compelling contrast. It’s hardly a monolith and claims members who are Democrats and Libertarians, but it has largely thrived as a force within the Republican Party. The movement’s brand here isn’t drastically different from the strain of conservatism that’s been dominant in Georgia politics through much of the past decade. But it offers a rallying point for voters who support ideals of individual liberty and fiscal conservatism, often in the guise of fighting new social constraints or tax increases.
In a state that’s already solidly conservative, the tea party has focused less on trying to impose a new regime and more on shifting the debate among ruling Republicans. In that respect, the tea party has already succeeded in some ways, forcing Gov. Nathan Deal to maneuver around the General Assembly for some of his priorities this year rather than risk a legislative revolt.
First, Deal proposed that a state agency, instead of lawmakers, levy the so-called “bed tax” hospital fee that shores up Georgia’s Medicaid program. That allowed the Legislature to avoid a direct vote on a fee that anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, a tea party favorite, has rallied against.
Then he reworked a deal for public financing to help pay for a $1 billion Falcons stadium sought by team owner Arthur Blank. That averted a vote among fidgety lawmakers who could be painted as sending public funds to a billionaire’s project. The vote will now likely be taken by the Atlanta City Council instead.
In another political era, a pitch for public dollars to fund one-third of a new Falcons stadium would likely have sailed through the Legislature. After all, when lawmakers voted to finance the Georgia Dome, which opened in 1992, it was 100 percent publicly funded.
And as other Republican governors embraced a key element of President Barack Obama’s health overhaul that enrolled more poor people in Medicaid, tea party groups have cheered as Deal remains steadfastly against an expansion. Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party, has warned that reversing that decision could open Deal to a primary challenge.
Dooley and others in the loosely knit coalition are preparing candidates for a range of races, and Athens Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, a tea party favorite, has already announced a Senate bid.
“We have to be smart. We can’t have challengers in all of the races. We have to pick our fights, and the Senate seat and congressional races are some of them,” said Dooley, whose group is launching the statewide organizing effort with funds from the national Tea Party Patriots group.
“Next year will be an incredible opportunity for tea party candidates. Congressional seats will open up, state legislature seats will open up. It’s a domino effect for us.”
The group’s impact could be particularly profound in Georgia because Republicans have full control of the levers of state government here after decades of Democratic dominance. Harvard professor Theda Skocpol, who studies the tea party movement, said ultraconservative voters and fundraisers still retain outsized sway in states like Georgia.
“The tea party isn’t as powerful as they used to be, but they have plenty of power in Georgia and shouldn’t be taken lightly,” said Bryan Long, the executive director of Better Georgia, a Democratic-leaning group. “I wouldn’t underestimate them.”
GOP divide
Fears that Democrats could gain from a primary victory by Broun threaten to sharpen a divide emerging in the state GOP as the tea party asserts itself.
Last month, for instance, U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell drew criticism from tea party groups when he said he didn’t oppose the objectives backed by Rove’s group. Price, a conservative physician, is one of several lawmakers mulling a run against Broun for Chambliss’ seat.
Matt Hoskins, who heads the tea party-aligned Senate Conservatives Fund, responded that the Republican establishment is “becoming increasingly hostile to the conservative movement, and Congressman Price should openly and aggressively oppose their efforts, not defend them.”
Analysts say the tea party will also face internal challenges as its successful candidates try to govern amid tight budget cycles. And it must wrestle with a range of pleas from rank-and-file members that might not align with the group’s priorities.
One example unfolded at the Forsyth event when Jack Smith of the Gilmer County Tea Party said Deal’s refusal to expand Medicaid and implement a state-based health care exchange under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul was not enough.
“We’re also trying to convince the governor he needs to stand up and implement nullification,” said Smith, who explained that he believes states have a duty not to enforce laws viewed as unconstitutional.
The movement also must cope with growing pains to evolve from a loosely knit grassroots organization to a more unified, if decentralized, outfit.
One telling example: Although supporters say at least 20 House Republicans identify with the movement, there’s no official - or unofficial - tea party caucus under the Gold Dome to corral members to take action.
“We agree most of the time, but not all of the time,” said state Rep. Buzz Brockway, R-Lawrenceville. “I think that’s what the tea party is all about. There’s a core set of issues and we do the best we can to follow them. But I reserve the right to make my own mind up about bills.”
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