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Steve Kornacki
April 7, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/04/07/shutdown_tea_party
It remains to be seen whether a last-minute deal will be struck to avert a government shutdown, but whatever the outcome, the current budget impasse has vividly illustrated a political reality: The Republicans and their Tea Party base had it easy for the past two years -- but not any longer.
In 2009 and 2010, there just wasn't much that the Tea Party movement -- which ostensibly sprang up in response to TARP but quickly became synonymous with the most engaged and conservative elements of the GOP -- could do to hurt the Republican Party's midterm election prospects. Democrats tried over and over to point out -- correctly -- that the movement was fundamentally right-wing in nature, and not the broad, grassroots coalition that its leaders claimed it was.