The major question now is whether the Republican establishment will say 'I told you so' all the way through next year’s mid-term elections or whether Republican leaders are going to take a resurgent grassroots movement seriously when it comes to picking candidates and promoting issues.

New York Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman really needed to pull out a win in New York’s 23rd congressional district special election this week.  That he lost to Democrat Bill Owens in a heavily Republican district after that party’s nominee quit the race over the weekend is not the result sought by conservative activists who made this a nationally watched race. 

The major question now is whether the Republican establishment will say “I told you so” all the way through next year’s mid-term elections or whether Republican leaders are going to take a resurgent grassroots movement seriously when it comes to picking candidates and promoting issues. 

So, who are the people who changed the NY-23 race?  Well, they’re the same folks watching Glenn Beck, attending Tea Party rallies, signing up for 9/12 Project membership and getting ready to “re-found” America.  Of course, there are other ways to define them.  They are the conservative grassroots backlash to the liberal policies coming from President Obama and his Democratic Congress.  They are the Right’s response to the Left’s “netroots,” an internet-based collection of people able to inform and organize across the country with members and money.  They are a collection of conservatives, libertarians and independents tired of excessive federal spending and the constant flow of taxes and regulation.  And boy are they ANGRY.

The rise of the Tea Party movement is directly linked to the failure by national Republican leaders to articulate the frustration of millions of people fed up with the increasing speed and frequency of government regulation.  Jeb Bush opted not to run for the Florida Senate seat, leaving space for the moderate-conservative primary fight between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.  As of this writing, Mitt Romney still can’t decide whether the stimulus bill should have been passed.  Ever the tinkerer, he acknowledges that it isn’t working, but says Obama should either reform the package or scrap it.  Not quite the steadfast opposition an anti-tax Tea Party attendee would reproduce on a homemade sign. 

With no charismatic voice rising from the national or state capitols, the people most affected by the leftward tilt in Washington are taking matters into their own hands.  In the months since President Obama took office, ordinary taxpayers have braved town hall meetings – often times in heavily Democratic districts – to tell their representative, No, I don’t support your position, and your votes for these bills are killing my ability to recover economically.  In many cases they have been greeted with cheers from other attendees. 

And why shouldn’t they be?  A stimulus plan totaling $787 billion “created or saved” 640,000 jobs – a far cry from the two to four million jobs projected to be created or saved when the bill was passed.  An international conference in Copenhagen is scheduled to discuss a massive redistribution of wealth from rich countries to poorer ones under the guise of “carbon reparations.”  The healthcare “reform” bill increases taxes and bureaucracies by the day, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying that she is willing to sacrifice seats during next year’s mid-term elections to pass ObamaCare.  If it does pass, the Tea Party set – possibly joined by hoards of independents and seniors – will be happy to oblige. 

Or, so they hope.  Going forward, grassroots conservatives need to find a way to prove that fidelity to limited government orthodoxy is sufficient and necessary to win in close races next year.  If grassroots conservatives want to build on the momentum of the past several months, they will need to prove that a strong anti-tax stand can do more than defeat a Republican; it can propel a conservative to victory, with a clarity that was distinctly muddled by circumstances in NY-23.