Weak tea?

DES MOINES - Dan Lucore said the Tea Party movement is far from dead.

He is an organizer with the Cedar Rapids branch of the Tea Party Patriots - one of several national organizations that sprung up in the last few years to turn loosely organized, local Tea Party groups into a national political movement.

How important a role the Tea Party will play in the Iowa caucuses and the 2012 election is a key question that political strategists hoping to put a Republican in the White House need to answer.

The movement is credited with changing the face of Congress in 2010, changing the nature of debate in Washington and moving the Republican Party to the right fiscally.

Lucore, who was active in the Tea Party in Mesa, Ariz., before he moved to Iowa and became active with the Cedar Rapids group, said interest in the Tea Party is actually rising as the caucuses draw closer.

“It goes back and forth, but we usually get between 10 and 30 people at our meetings,” Lucore said.

Discussion typically revolves around issues, although candidate talk has become more frequent, he said.

“There's no one candidate,” Lucore said. “I just know in talking to members that some of them don't think (former Massachusetts Gov.) Mitt Romney is conservative enough.”

Supporting one candidate

“The Tea Party is really important,” said Craig Robinson, editor of the Iowa Republican news site and a former executive with the state party. He said the Tea Party will play a big role in the caucuses, but he doesn't see much impact on the general election.

“Turnout at the caucuses is typically pretty low, so if you have an organized group that will ensure an increase in attendance, they can be very effective,” Robinson said.

Once a candidate is selected, Robinson doesn't believe the impact will be as noticeable. He said Tea Party voters are predisposed to support the Republican candidate, rather than President Barack Obama, whether there is a Tea Party group or not.

While all the candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination have given at least a nod to the Tea Party activists, two have gone out of their way to particularly align themselves with the movement.

Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain - both of whom have spent at least some time at the top of the polls - actively court the so-called Tea Party vote. Bachmann started the Tea Party caucus in Congress, and Cain proudly talks up his personal and campaign ties with Americans for Prosperity, which supports Tea Party causes.

Although, said Drake University political scientist Dennis Goldford, Bachmann's campaign rhetoric has increasingly been aimed at social conservatives, as her poll numbers began to tumble following her victory in the Iowa GOP straw poll this summer.

“She had her moment in the sun,” Goldford said. “Now she sounds more like religious candidate 2.0.”

Still mighty?

Justin Holmes, a political scientist at the University of Northern Iowa, believes Tea Party influence has waned as a whole.

He cites recent polling data that shows Tea Party favorability of less that 30 percent, fewer public events than in the run up to the 2010 elections and the results of Tuesday's elections as evidence.

He cites, for example, the Ohio vote that overturned restrictive collective-bargaining laws for public employees whose pensions and other benefits have been a target of Tea Party organizations.

“Even in our own local elections here, there were two candidates for city council that were backed by the Tea Party, and both lost,” Holmes said. “One of them is Judd Saul, who is pretty active in the Tea Party.”

Saul is a member of the Cedar Valley Tea Party. He acted as media liaison when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin keynoted a Tea Party rally in September in Indianola and ran for a seat on the Cedar Falls City Council but lost by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio.

Goldford, however, said the Tea Party can't be counted out.

The debt ceiling debate of the summer is a good example, Goldford said, of how the Tea Party can control an issue. Congress ultimately agreed to raising the debt ceiling, but only with promises to reduce future government spending.

Goldford sees similarity in the way the issue of tax increases is being handled in the campaign.

“There are candidates who are swearing on their firstborn not to raise taxes,” he said.

Occupy the spotlight

Meanwhile, there is another group that may be poised to take the Tea Party mantle, although this group is coming from the left.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to several cities in the United States. Like the Tea Party, Occupy groups march in protest. Unlike the Tea Party, Occupy members will camp out overnight, which has, in some cities, brought them into conflict with police enforcing local and state ordinances.

That includes Des Moines, where about three dozen protesters were arrested in October after their Capitol grounds permit expired. The group has since occupied a city park with the blessing of the city's mayor, Frank Cownie.

Also, where the Tea Party has focused its attention on government spending, Occupy groups focus on the lack of government intervention in the free market.

Ed Fallon, a former state legislator who ran for governor and Congress, is an organizer with Occupy Iowa, based in Des Moines.

He said the Occupy groups have been effective in moving the political debate in the country and invited other Occupy groups to Des Moines for the Jan. 3 caucuses.

“We don't support any single candidate,” said Fallon. “If you talk to our group, you'll find some Barack Obama supporters, some Ron Paul supporters, some who aren't in support of anyone.”

UNI's Holmes agrees, to an extent, with Fallon's assessment.

“Broadly speaking, this is going to be an election about economics, but that can take a number of forms,” he said. “In the 2010 race and in their time in office, Republicans made the deficit the No. 1 priority. Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, seems to have already shifted some of the discussion away from deficits and to inequality, jobs and financial sector regulation.”

Drake's Goldford said the future of the Occupy movement and its potential impact on the political process is “hard to tell” because it is so new. He said it does not have the financial backing or the focus that the Tea Party movement has enjoyed.

Plus, Goldford said, the Tea Party had a message that struck a chord with a large segment of the population. He's not sure Occupy has the same cachet.

“The question is the message,” he said. “Having lower taxes is something most people can relate to on some level. An anti-capitalism message, depending on how far it goes, is a different message altogether.”

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