CA: The Limits of the Tea Party

At the New York Times "Room for Debate" blog, Doug Johnson explains:

The "Tea Party candidate" Tim Donnelly shocked California's Republican establishment with his primary victory in the 59th Assembly District, which is east of Los Angeles. But Mr. Donnelly was the exception proving the rule that California's huge population smothers grassroots movements.

The Tea Party's grassroots organizing occurs primarily by word of mouth (whether in person or through online social media). But California's electorate is simply too enormous to reach one by one. Like Mr. Donnelly, Chuck DeVore ran a "tea party" campaign in his race for U.S. Senate. A populist conservative, Mr. DeVore was an early supporter of Scott Brown's Massachusetts Senate campaign. But where 30,500 tea party voters won the Senate primary in Delaware, and 56,000 Alaska tea party votes won in Alaska, Mr. DeVore's 452,000 votes placed him only a distant third in California's Republican Senate primary.