Tea party movement still strong, Harvard professor tells U. students
Senator Mike Lee speaks during a Tea Party Express press conference in Salt Lake City Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. The tea party movement that toppled former Utah Sen. Bob Bennett in 2010 and supported Lee, his successor, remains strong, a Harvard University professor said Thursday at the University of Utah.
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY The tea party movement that toppled former Utah Sen. Bob Bennett in 2010 and supported his successor, Sen. Mike Lee, remains strong, a Harvard University professor said Thursday at the University of Utah.
"It has been very, very successful and continues to be very successful as a leveraging operation, not a label or as a popularity contest," said Theda Skocpol, a government and sociology professor at Harvard.
Speaking at the U.'s Hinckley Institute of Politics, Skocpol said the tea party has pulled the Republican Party to the extreme right, particularly on health care, immigration and global warming, preventing political compromise.
But Skocpol, co-author of the book "The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism," said that doesn't mean supporters aren't pragmatic about achieving their goals.
She said Lee, who faces re-election in 2016, is already exhibiting that trait after standing with another national tea party leader, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in the battle that led to an unpopular shutdown of the federal government.
"I noticed Sen. Lee refused to endorse Ted Cruz for president," Skocpol said, "which I take to mean he's very pragmatically keeping his options open among the various conservative contenders for the Republican nomination."
And while Lee has been promoting what he calls a conservative reform agenda largely aimed at helping the middle class, the Harvard professor said it's not likely he's backing away from his tea party ideals.
"In general, I think tea party people of all stripes are quite pragmatic about what the goal is," Skocpol said. "I would be very surprised if Sen. Lee is actually moderating on any of the major policy issues of the day."
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Tea party movement still strong, Harvard professor tells U. students