Does the Tea Party have a new leader? – Civil War in the GOP Series

Juan Williams of Fox News has a new column out proclaiming Senator Rand Paul as the new leader of the Tea Party movement, a movement that rejects central leadership. Although the movement has seemed rudderless since the defeat of the Republican Party in 2012, conservative and libertarian grassroots institutions have maintained mobilization nationwide despite the fact that the establishment GOP has been thrown into chaos.

Williams writes: “With the Tea Party brand currently at new lows – only 22 percent support in a January Associated Press poll – and former Tea Party leaders such as Sarah Palin, Dick Armey and Jim DeMint fading from the scene, Sen. Paul is now the face of the anti-establishment wing of the GOP.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/02/21/surprise-tea-party-has-new-leader/#ixzz2LY4RmPLi

While Karl Rove has declared war on the conservative grassroots, institutions like FreedomWorks have rid themselves of the old guard Republicans and refreshed their rosters with young, ideologically consistent libertarians. The grassroots is prepping for a 2014 and  2016 that will seek to elect real limited government Republicans who are consistent in their defense of liberty. At the opposite end of that is Karl Rove’s group that has recently launched a campaign to smear Hollywood actress Ashley Judd.

Williams made waves in the past election when he predicted that this was the “Age of Ron Paul“. He wrote that the Tea Party “grew largely out of the ashes of (Paul’s) 2008 presidential campaign” by emphasizing “limited government and a return to constitutional principles.” Indeed, Paul’s form of economics has infected the GOP from top to bottom with lectures from Austrian economists being sought out to speak at Tea Party events as well as high dollar fundraisers in Washington.

The classical liberal school of laissez-faire economic principles have started becoming so influential that Paul Krugman has begun taking shots at the movement claiming that adherents of limited government are a “cult”. A Wikipedia page devoted to Austrian Economics has been closed to editing due to an intense online battle over the predictions of hyperinflation by classical liberal economists. Clearly the left has spied their newest threat emerging from the right…. the libertarian youth movement. After two Presidential election cycles under their belt, could Ron Paul’s revolution end with his son in the White House?

Although Time Magazine has declared Marco Rubio to the the “Republican Savior”, it appears that a 2016 run for the White House by the Florida Senator may be an attempt by the establishment wing of the party to co-opt the grassroots into running another moderate Republican similar to Mitt Romney. Glenn Beck appeared on Bill O’Reilly‘s show last week expressing doubts about Rubio and claimed that he was totally against the GOP establishment: “I support constitutionalists like Rand Paul.”

The grassroots conservative and libertarian movement seems to have a clear favorite in the Kentucky Senator who galvanized his fathers supporters while maintaining a strong sense of decorum with the GOP power brokers by endorsing Mitt Romney. Paul’s willingness to stand strong on civil liberties and speak out against unrestrained Executive power  has ingratiated him with his fathers notoriously cantankerous followers while not alienating the strong national defense wing of the party.

If the Senator were to run in 2016, he would likely do battle with an establishment candidate who is supposed to appear as the “anti-establishment” pick. Could that be a candidate such as a Marco Rubio? Would it be possible to unite the various factions of the liberty and conservative movement to put together a Rand/Rubio ticket? Would it be competitive against an emboldened Hillary Clinton? Only time will tell…

Williams concludes his piece with the statement: “… for now, replacing social conservatism with libertarian thinking is key to Sen. Paul’s effort to revive the Tea Party.”

Williams may be referring to the comments made by senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock whose unpopular comments on abortion ended their campaigns in 2012. However, the social conservative wing of the libertarian movement itself is very strong. Many libertarians are pro life and socially conservative. Therefore, a rejection of social conservatism is unlikely to result in a Rand Paul presidential victory. No, it seems that the move will not be to squelch social conservatism. It appears that with the Senator taking on President Barack Obama‘s extrajudicial kill list, the NDAA and the PATRIOT Act that a forthcoming Tea Party rebellions biggest enemies would be the Neo-Conservative wing of the Republican Party.

If libertarians and social conservatives were to make peace, could they rein in the unrestrained militancy in foreign policy the GOP currently employs and become the party of peace, life and free markets? Only time will tell.

And the civil war in the GOP continues…