The National Journal has an interesting article that claims The Tea Party's Over. The point of it is that the GOP Establishment has cornered the "off reservation" movement, and will win the war against it, reasserting control over how the party defines acceptable "conservatism."
If this occurs, the real question to be answered is how much of the base that now identifies with the Tea Party can be convinced yet again that candidates like Jeb Bush have their best interests in mind? Can the country clubbers use more wedge bait to get such people to turn out and vote over some future social or cultural panic issue, or has the base seen the plutocracy and crony capitalists for what they are?
If the GOP establishment succeeds in marginalizing and defunding the Tea Party, what it may get is simply fewer people turning out to vote for Republicans, and vote period, as the most culturally conservative members of its base might just opt out as voters. Whatever new wedge baiting strategy the GOP big boys come up with to replace the Southern one, it will have to be so fear inducing that it trumps the right's hazy realization that its been played for a sucker by them too many times in the past. The best the GOP can hope for with Hispanics is a marginally higher plurality, so as economic elitists, they will need some reactionary agenda in order to blunt the growing demographic and social class advantage likely to accrue to Democrats in a financial and trade environment that produces widening wealth and income maldistribution on the ends, and a flatter bell curve in the middle. Expect the GOP to get a short term bump out of Obamacare's woes, but the party still has massive long term problems.
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