Soul-searching time on the center-right. The unorganized movement of fed-up citizens called Tea Party (not as another political party, but invoking the spirit of 1773 at Boston Harbor) has no way of choosing its tactics or learning a new style. It's just a frustrated outpouring of civic energy and urgency. So if there's any learning to be done, the Republican organization (sometimes called the establishment, but that's an unhelpful pejorative) must learn how to harness this movement's determination and passion. Only in that way can our side build a winning coalition to stop the Obama collectivist wave.
Thus when my friend Mike Rosen wrote a warning in his Denver Post column the other day,"Tea Party must learn to embrace coalition politics," based on things some Tea Party activists have said that are reckless, self-defeating, or apocalyptic, I'll grant he had a point "up to a point."
But the only institutional vehicle capable of learning anything or leading anything, in this moment of tremendous opportunity as America senses the greatest upsurge of populist fervor in half a century, is the skeletal structure of the GOP.
The adapting that we all know is needed has to come from them, not from the fed-up citizens movement. Here's the Rosen column. Tell me what you think.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_24469443/tea-party-must-learn-embrace-coalition-politics