After losing on healthcare reform, Tea Partiers launched a nation-wide bus campaign this weekend. On Saturday, they some ten thousand activists descended on Harry Reid's small hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, hoping to help unseat the Democratic Majority Leader this November and to play a major role in the mid-term elections. Tea Partiers have been criticized for inflammatory rhetoric that's ratcheting up political tension, and which critics say has helped fuel harassment against some Democratic lawmakers. How far will the movement go? How will it shape political debate? And how are Democrats and mainstream Republicans responding?
Will Tea Party Activists Derail before November?
Credits
Guests:
- David Weigel - Washington Post - @daveweigel
- Mark Potok - Editor, Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report
- Tony Shreeve - member, American Patriotic Taxpayers
- James Joyner - blogger, Outside the Beltway
- John Geer - Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt University