Why The Tea Party Can't Win The Republican Nomination

Conor Friedersdorf:

But the actual tea party isn't savvy. It overestimates its clout within the GOP, fails to appreciate the many obstacles to winning a general election, let alone implementing its agenda, and is therefore careless and immature in choosing its champions. It elevates polarizing figures of questionable competence like Sarah Palin because doing so is cathartic. It backed Michele Bachmann despite her thin resume, erratic behavior in interviews, and the fact that she cares most about advancing a socially conservative agenda, not a small-government agenda. Its erstwhile favorite, Rick Perry, doesn't even subscribe to what ought to be a core tea party tenet: that the government shouldn't subsidize particular firms, picking winners and losers. Perry is a right-wing corporatist. And Herman Cain, the front-runner of the week? He has zero governing experience, acknowledges that he knows next to nothing about foreign policy, flip flops on matters of tremendous consequence, and touts a flawed economic plan, 9-9-9, that could never pass.

I'll go with that they like idiots and assholes, and they don't have the money to buy the nomination like the establishment Republicans and the corporations do.  The establishment and the corporations don't hate the current system, because they benefit the most from it.  They'll allow the loons to push the Overton window further right, because it benefits them, but when the Tea Party tries to cut them off from the government trough, the Tea Party gets the boot.  It's pretty simple, the Tea Party is there to give the Republicans the majority, at least in non-presidential year elections.  They may get some idiot congressment in there, but come the next election, that candidate isn't going to get any corporate money if they don't play ball.  The establishment is playing a dangerous game, but they can get away with it in Presidential elections, because those elections cost so much, and the candidate has to win votes in the suburbs, not just in rural districts which love to hear the Tea Party garbage.  The corporations and the establishment hold the power in national elections, and nobody should believe otherwise.  The Tea Party will fall into line when Romney is nominated, just watch.