Flush with electoral success and a new Gallup poll that shows 7 in 10 Americans want Republicans to heed its small-government ideas, the tea party movement is on a roll toward its ultimate prize: determining the 2012 presidential election and becoming, in Sarah Palin’s words, “the future of politics in America.”
But the tea party phenomenon teeters at a critical point in its rags-to-riches two-year history. In fact, the future of the tea party could largely be determined in the next few months as its willingness – or not – to compromise on key issues comes into sharp focus.
“The big question is whether the tea party is politically savvy enough and realistic enough to realize that democracy works through incrementalism, or are we going to see this passion that says, ‘If you compromise, you’re done,’ which is basically forming a circular firing squad,” says Robert Watson, a political scientist at Lynn University, in Boca Raton, Fla.
Full Story: Can the tea party survive success? – CSMonitor.com