The Tea Party Doesn't Matter In Nevada Anymore

I know none of you give a shit about what goes on in Nevada but it's right next door to me so I keep an eye on what's going on there. The Repug caucus there is this coming Saturday.

There are two Nevadas - Las Vegas and everywhere else. About 90% of Everywhere Else is owned by the federal government and conservatives hate that. Lost Wages has by far more residents than the rest of the state, literally twice as many, and nobody, or very few anyway, actually were born there. To my way of thinking, most of the population falls in two groups, those who were heading for California and whose cars broke down in the desert or mountains, or folks from California who moved to dodge arrest warrants.

Nobody is ever going to say "As Nevada goes, so goes the nation!" but we can hope.

BuzzFeed. Good quick read about bumbling wingnuts and why we should egg 'em on. Heh.

Mitt, Newt, Rick, and Ron will battle for a state that was once the core of Tea Party politics, and is now a microcosm of its fall. Now the Right is divided and distracted: “Conservatives in this state just can't figure out how to row in the same direction,” says Muth.

That's because each group thinks they're in charge and everybody else should do things their way and we're By God Amurrikkkans who can never compromise. My way or the highway and there's a lotta lonely highways in Nevada. Damn fine program if you ask me!

In what has become a microcosm of the movement nationwide, the unifying populism of the midterms has given way here to a host of bickering factions with no common cause, no money to fund a resurgence, and no clear leaders.

"We constantly have people who come into town and announce, 'I'm the head of the such-and-such coalition,'" said Vicki Dooling, who runs communications for the Las Vegas Valley Tea Party. "And it's just like, well says who? Who are you?"

Dooling insists that the tea party is more active than ever in Nevada--and that may be true. But with the activists committed to so many different special-interest conservative causes, it's tough these days to distinguish between the tea party movement and, well, the Republican establishment. What's more, without a unifying cause drawing public attention, the money from well-funded national organizations has dried up.

"They don't even make an effort to coordinate with us anymore," said one local tea partier.

You should take the hint...

Not long after that day, Palin would endorse Angle. Her campaign — from her populist-propelled nomination to a series of bungles and misstatements that produced a spectacular collapse — turned Nevada into a case study in how much damage the grassroots could do to the party’s shot at national power.

Thank you, Teabaggers.