GOP Pollster Agrees "Tea Party" is Just New Branding

Writing for the website of The Hill newspaper over the weekend, I opined that the Tea Party was just the same old GOP base with but with "a new name and a new branding." According to NBC News' First Read, a leading Republican pollster agrees with this assessment.

Making sense of the Tea Party: The poll also gives us a better idea of the Tea Party, with 27% saying they support the movement. These folks, it turns out, are more conservative and bigger watchers of FOX News than your typical Republican. Per McInturff, Tea Party members are simply re-branded conservative GOP primary voters -- not something completely new. “These are conservative Republicans who watch FOX, and who are very ticked off,” he said.

As I wrote for The Hill, it's yet unclear whether this re-branded conservative base will actually yield different results for the GOP. Sometimes this base's candidates have won in GOP-friendly cycles, like Tea Party favorites Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, both of whom upset establishment candidates in party primaries en route to Senate wins. But other times this base's candidates have lost, like Oliver North did in spectacular fashion in 1994 despite raising a remarkable 8-figure sum in direct mail contributions.