The US elections of 2008 and 2010 expressed the desire for change by vast numbers of Americans. Unfortunately, far from being an agent of real change, President Obama pretty much rolled over for the special interest groups and with each passing day it's getting hard to tell where Bush's presidency ended and Obama's began.
The Tea Party movement was something special as it occurred pretty spontaneously, had no acknowledged national leaders and had a pretty broad-based appeal. However, for a variety of reasons (its own success; media interference; and the sustained activism on the right of the Republican party) the Tea Party movement became more right-wing and lost center/center-right support.
What this means is simply that 2010 will proved to have been the high-water mark for the Tea Party. It has become too extreme to attract the numbers of new supporters necessary to capture majorities in 2012.
Moreover, the conservative right (including the Tea Party) will split the Republican vote in 2012 and we will see big gains for the Democrats in the House and Senate and President Obama in the White House for a second term - and remember, this will please Wall Street, too.
What needs to happen - and history shows that it will - is that a movement or an individual from the middle will capture the public imagination in the way Obama did in 2008 and more moderate, even progressive, Republicans will be elected and the balance of power in the US will be restored and the "wingnuts" marginalized.
Unlikely though it may seem, Scott Walker could do this. If he has anything that looks like success with the Wisconsin budget, he could find himself as a vice presidential candidate in the way that Calvin Coolidge won national attention with his "No one has the right to strike against public safety" declaration.
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