White House paints rivals with tea party brush

Michele Bachmann's win in the straw poll of the Republican Party faithful in Iowa — the first voter test of the 2012 presidential campaign — had to be good news to a White House battered by a downturn in the economy and an uptick in war casualties.


The Minnesota congresswoman's win in the nonbinding contest, which historically has not been a major factor in picking the GOP nominee, nonetheless helps her chances of becoming the party's standard-bearer, given the Tea Party movement's muscle flexing in this political season. Bachmann is a leader of that kamikaze wing of House Republicans.


Although the Tea Party movement's approval rating has been in a steady decline, it still holds great sway over the GOP. The no-compromise stance it forced on congressional Republicans during the debt debate has pushed the movement onto the tundra of U.S. politics, a position from which Bachmann cannot mount a successful assault on Obama's presidency.


If the Tea Party wing's stranglehold on the GOP propels Bachmann to the party's presidential nomination, something many pundits think is still a long shot, Bachmann will be soundly defeated in the general election and drag other Republicans down to defeat. In such a campaign, voters will be constantly reminded that Bachmann opposed raising the debt ceiling at a time when many Democrats and Republicans said doing so would court economic catastrophe.


Tying a political opponent to a not-so-popular person or movement is a hit-or-miss strategy, said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign ran ads against "DoleGingrich." The goal was to link Republican nominee Bob Dole to Newt Gingrich, then the embattled House Speaker, and now a presidential candidate.


The tea party could be a tougher target, Pitney said. "A diffuse movement with no clear leader does not arouse the same kind of emotion," he said.


Mike DuHaime, who managed Republican Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign, said the Democrats' tactic might succeed so long as Romney and the other Republican candidates seem to be toeing the tea party line.


"The strategy is sound for the Obama team because they would love the campaign to be about the challenger, no matter who it is," DuHaime said. "To the extent that our candidates continue to essentially march in lockstep with each other on major issues, it will be easy for the Obama campaign to paint them all with the same brush."


Obama had a rare direct brush with a tea partyer this week while shaking hands in Iowa. Activist Ryan Rhodes complained about reports that Vice President Joe Biden had said tea partyers acted "like terrorists" in the debt-ceiling showdown.


Obama said Biden "was objecting to us almost defaulting" on U.S. debts. When Rhodes persisted, Obama told him "it doesn't sound like you are interested in listening."


Earlier, the president portrayed himself as a pragmatic problem-solver who might appeal to independent voters wary of the tea party's conservative fervor.