I know many of my fellow Tea Partiers bristle at the idea of organization or leadership, but that’s what we need. We need a Tea Party caucus within the party functioning by ‘16 complete with a ‘party within the party’ platform and delegation system. WE need to hold our caucus a full month before the first state primary/caucus and choose our candidate.
In this way, no leader wannabe gets to “speak for the Tea Party”. We would speak, as a group, for ourselves.
If the Tea Party formally organizes about the business of choosing our candidate before the first state contest, we can short circuit the long fingered wave from the national GOP-e.
A Tea Party within the party formal caucus works for down-ballot races, as well.
You know, I think you’re right. I was looking at this at more of a micro level, but real impact would be made if it could be done at an organizational level. Potential candidates could compete for the endorsement of the TP caucus, which would come with funding and organization behind it.
With enough money and organizational infrastructure, it would certainly be a prize worth having, and a rule that would require anyone submitting themselves to the caucus to support and endorse the winner of the “pre-primary” would keep fragmentation to a minimum.
The potential pitfalls would be the need to keep the caucus on-mission, as the GOP-E would certainly seek to infiltrate and “turn” it, or at least marginalize it enough to dry up the money and influence. Also, there would have to be a vigorous and thorough vetting of contenders so that there would be no ugly surprises down the road.