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I mean, this is a guy who s walked away from climate changeç he s walked away from mandates on health care. so has newt gingrich. so in that sense you could argue maybe that the tea party has actually won. yeah, that s a good point. i think that to the degree that it s the end of the tea party i mean it in the sense of as a distinct oppositional force. because i think what we ve seen is a kind of co-option, and that co-option has moved in both directions. i think you re exactly right to say that what we ve seen from the positions taken by the primary candidates is to cater as much as is humanly possible to the most sort of radical notions. i mean, you have people who were going to be front-runners like rick perry saying they want to get rid of social security, which is really about as far out there as you can get. right. and you ve got too the fact that they just there are so many candidates out there now vying for the tea party vote, vying for the christian conservative ....
But there are a couple of things worth noting. one is that mitt romney is at 25% in the polls here. that is no greater than he got four years ago. and that does suggest that, you know, if these numbers hold that 75% of the people who show up next tuesday are going to be voting for somebody else. i think one of the things that has really defined this year is the fact that there s a lot of anti-establishment energy but it can t seem to settle on one candidate. so i think that s an issue out there. i think it s less of an embrace of mitt romney than sort of going through those seven stages. they ve moved on from denial to acceptance. but the other thing you ve got to think about is that mitt romney himself has changed. i mean, he has embraced, as have they all, a lot of what the tea party stands for. i mean, this is a guy who s walked away from climate changeç he s walked away from mandates ....