Tea Partiers Face Reality
'Tea Party' candidate Rick Barber and Martha Roby are both competing in the GOP Primary
Rep. Bobby Bright (D) represents the very conservative 2nd Congressional District of Alabama. He only won his election in 2008 by 0.6% of the vote so on paper the district could be a Republican pick-up in 2010. Tea Party activists even have one of their own running for the Republican Primary. But can the activists take their excitement, and turn it into results? Some indicators suggest they face a challenge, and not only because Bright was rated by National Journal as the most conservative Democrat in Congress.
There is no doubt that the Tea Partiers in Alabama are creative and passionate. To protest Bobby Bright’s unwillingness to attend a Tea Party sponsored town hall about healthcare, they held their own forum, and had a mannequin of Bobby Bright stand in for the representative. The entire video series is on YouTube.
One Alabama Tea Party activist is Rick Barber, who is running for the Republican nomination. Barber is a genuine Tea Partier, not a politician trying to co-opt the movement. As Becky Gerritson, an activist in the Wetumpka Tea Party says, “He has been very active in our Tea Party since the beginning, when he wasn’t even thinking about running. He was a bus captain on our 9/12 march to Washington.” Barber even went to Massachusetts to campaign for Scott Brown. There hasn’t been much media interest in the race, but the few pieces that have written about it make sure to mention that Barber is also the owner of a Montgomery based pool hall, and hosted non-partisan ‘patriot nights’ which allowed Tea Partiers to organize.
If the Tea Party movement is developing its own clique of campaign managers and staffers, Barber is getting a lot of their support. His campaign manager is Yates Walker; he was the Regional Director on Doug Hoffman’s congressional campaign for New York’s 23rd congressional district. Many different campaigns wanted his services after NY-23, but he decided to work with Rick, “Of the people who asked me to run their campaigns, I though Rick was the best candidate with the best chance of winning.” Barber has also gotten the support of one of the new Tea Party PACs. The Liberty First PAC has endorsed Tea Party candidates such as JD Hayworth and Marco Rubio. Its chair, Eric Odom, thinks that Barber is worth their resources: “In that particular race, we think Rick Barber really has a chance.”
Before Barber can even take on the Democrats, he will need to defeat Martha Roby, and Stephanie Bell, two other Republican candidates, with Martha Roby considered by some to be the ‘establishment’ candidate. Tea Party activist Becky Gerritson says Roby is a “great candidate” but that she “doesn’t have the passion like Rick does.” Similarly, Odom does not intend on supporting Roby if she wins the nomination, “Most folks that we’ve had conversations with are just really uncomfortable with the way that she is attached to the entire GOP establishment.” (Unlike in some races, there is no talk of a third party challenge if Roby wins, conservatives in the district are planning to support the eventual nominee.)
Some political analysts are skeptical of Barber’s chances. David Mowery, the campaign manager for Bobby Bright’s campaign and a strategist who works with Democratic and Republican clients, explained the real hurdles in these races: “The big challenge, in a district like this is money. You have two media markets…and it’s one of the largest congressional districts outside of Montana.” The district has such a wide spectrum of demographics (high income and low income, urban and rural, etc.) that any campaign will be need to distribute its message as far as it can.
Other analysts are not sure how well Barber will do among Republicans. ‘Danny’ runs the Alabama political blog Doc's Political Parlor and at the moment is skeptical of Barber’s success, arguing that “Martha Roby and now Stephanie Bell (who has entered the race) have a stronger resume over time with Republicans (having won races) and are easily considered stronger candidates than Rick Barber… my sense is that at the starting gate Bell and Roby would be considered stronger candidates than Barber because of their campaign and election experience.”
In AL-02, the Tea Party has a candidate who has clearly been important within their movement, and who they want to win. Although he has been making public appearances, he is currently in a weaker fundraising position. Bobby Bright has also been polling well, and the Cook Political Report changed the district from being a “toss up” to “lean Democratic.” Tea Party candidates like Barber may generate excitement and endorsements, but as the primaries and midterms get closer, their challenge will be to take their excitement, and deliver results.
