Frankly, I don’t think there’s enough Tea Party folks to make a difference. Well, there’s certainly not enough to elect a candidate, but there may be enough to make sure a Dem gets elected again.
I remember all the self-proclaimed “conservative base” here who were just too pure to vote for Romney (who was a horrible candidate in every respect, but who did have a chance of winning) and thus resigned themselves to marginalization for another four years. Until the party as a whole gets into the WH, the Tea Party will just be a lot of noise. Tea Party thinking can make a difference under a GOP administration, but never under a Dem administration.
It no longer works karl.