COLUMBUS
As Ohio’s tea party movement celebrates its first birthday, mainstream candidates are trying to read the tea leaves for how the angry surge will impact them at the polls.
Leaders of the loosely allied tea party or liberty groups around the state are increasingly on record saying their frustration with government has spanned both the Republican Bush and Democratic Obama administrations. They argue that advocating a return to the values laid out in America’s Constitution and Bill of Rights isn’t partisan. Hefty government-backed social programs and Wall Street bailouts are equally within their sights.
Yet, in statewide races, the movement’s influence is being felt almost exclusively on Republican candidates.
The Ohio Democratic Party has fanned the flames of dissent among conservatives by buying Facebook ads targeting tea-party voters with keywords such as “Glenn Beck,” “912 Project” or “The O’Reilly Factor.” An early example suggested Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich has contradicted himself on whether the state should take federal-stimulus dollars.
Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck said the tea party is bringing economic conservatism back to center stage — and that puts Republicans who espouse fiscal discipline in the hot seat.
“Ohio, like the rest of the nation, is reacting to what it sees as unbridled government spending engaged in by both Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “What they’re wanting to do is push the Republicans in a much more conservative direction on economic issues than they have been in the last 10 years.”
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