Open Letter to the Tea Partiers: Give Romney Your Full Support

One of the major questions in Republican politics recently has been "will the Tea Party support Mitt Romney?" This has never been more salient than in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on the healthcare with Romney's undeclared moratorium on the issue. But this question is easily answered: they will obviously give their party's standard-bearer their full-throated support. The Tea Party fear of America collapsing into a socialist, communist, Muslim state under President Obama is a far more powerful motivator than the perceived moderate nature of Mitt Romney is a deterrent. But the more important question is "should the Tea Party support Mitt Romney?" And the answer to that is without a doubt yes.

The coattail effect is strong in American politics, as is the reverse coattail effect. What this means is that if President Obama is elected to a second term, the Democrats can probably expect to pick up 20+ seats in the House of Representatives and 3-4 seats in the Senate. However, if Mitt Romney manages to upset the incumbent president, the Republicans can expect roughly the same. This would potentially simultaneously give them control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. 

So far, Romney has not defined himself as a man of great courage. I read somewhere that while Romney and the other Republicans talk about how they would be tough on China or whatever country is the boogeyman of the current day, they all cower in fear of Rush Limbaugh. The Tea Party created a working template for this in Virginia where they managed to side-tracked Governor "Bob's for Jobs" McDonnell off of his singular focus on economic issues and the vice-presidency into divisive social issues and almost brought him into the illegal quagmire of voter ID laws. If the Republicans manage to take control of the US House and Senate in November along, I have seen nothing to indicate that Romney won't rubber stamp whatever the Tea Party wants. 

His ideal point far to the left of where the Tea Party wants him, but that doesn't matter. He will only get the choice to sign or veto whatever the Tea Party wants, and I would be shocked if he didn't follow the path of Governor McDonnell and hide his head in the sand with hopes that it all just goes away as quickly as possible.