Politics

What's the Future of the Tea Party?

By Lucy Madison

September 17, 2010 / 9:22 AM EDT / CBS News

On today's episode of CBSNews.com's "Washington Unplugged," National Journal's Jonathan Rauch and DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan questioned the political viability of the Tea Party in future elections, arguing that while the party had succeeded in driving voter turnout among conservatives, it was also diverting support from party-backed Republicans and producing what Sevugan described as a "a slate of deeply flawed candidates."

"What we saw on Tuesday was a party deeply divided," Sevugan told host Bob Schieffer. "In Delaware, we have a candidate in Christine O'Donnell who is so far out of the mainstream that she believes that women in our service academies are a detriment to our military; in New York... the GOP standard bearer for the state... wants to turn state prisons into dormitories for people on Welfare."

Rauch questioned the implications of a fractured conservative party in 2012, noting that while, ideologically, Tea Party members tend to identify as staunchly conservative, they have limited party loyalty to the GOP. "In the short term, political analysts... tend to think the Tea Party will be good for Republicans in this cycle, because it will drive more Republican and conservative voters to the polls," Rauch said. "But they're also pulling the party to right.. does that that make it harder for the party to win in 20102?"

"It's a swarm, it's a hive; they call it open source politics," Rauchman said of the Tea Party's structural core. "They don't regard themselves as loyal to Republicans -- they are very conservative but they're happy to vote against the Republicans... They don't fundamentally see themselves as a political movement about electing people and taking power. They see themselves as a social movement about reeducating the American public to make it more skeptical of big government."

In terms of what that might mean for November's midterm elections, Sevugan reiterated the Democratic party line: "The message out there is going to be, do we continue to move forward with Democratic policies that are slowly getting us out of the ditch that Republicans put us in, or do we hand the keys back to Republicans who put us in the ditch to begin with? I think when that choice is made, and people look at candidates before them... the choice is gonna be very clear. They're going to vote for the Democratic Party."

Watch the full show above, which includes the full discussion with Rauch and Sevugan as well as a look at youth voters and the latest installment of "Unplugged Under 40" with a profile of the Georgetown University students who founded "Sweet Green," a popular D.C. salad place.

"Washington Unplugged," CBSNews.com's exclusive daily politics Webshow, appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 2 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.