You’re right - the economy isn’t dead yet. Until it is, spiritual principles will not return on a wider scale and enable a national majority of people of faith. And, until the GOP gets it’s priorities straight (a soul searching), I don’t know that they are the Tea Party’s ‘vehicle’.
The economy is one aspect with crisis potential. Another is the Left’s victory in the culture war. Right now, all these gay marriages, free contraception, death panels, collectivization of the medical profession and the like are stuff that happens to someone else. When it molests your child, pulls the plug on your grandma, and your pastor is carted off for insensitivity, people will start waking up.