From what I can tell, most (not all) of the Tea Party's membership is drawn from stalwart conservatives who are disgusted both with Obama and the Democrats and with the mainstream of the Republican party, who paid lip service to their concerns (deficits, spending, and cultural issues) but did nothing about them while in power.

I'm impressed at how quickly the Tea Party has become one of the dominant forces in the conservative movement and their successes in ousting establishment Republicans in primaries. I'm interested to see how the various Tea Party candidates who will be elected in the fall shake things up. Rand Paul has already pledged to filibuster any budget that isn't balanced, and I'm pretty confident he's going to win in Kentucky.

Good heavens, here's that woeful ignorance again: it is Congress, not the President, who controls tax law. Every time you call a tax measure by the President's name, you give those scum a pass.

Will the Tea Party become the GOP's Donnor Party?

Unfortunately, America is a two party system and probably always will be. Rove has a good point in that by fracturing the conservatives, we are essentially handing the election to the liberals (like what happened with Ross Perot and Clinton.) The only possible good news is that perhaps the tea party can reform the conservative base ... but that seems unlikely in the long term.

And while I don't want to give Bush any credit, I agree with Christopher in that it was the last 7.5 years of Democratic control of Congress that brought us the Freddy/Fannie failure, open borders, tax cuts that expire ...

Actually, Allen - Rove hasn't got a point at all. Rove represents the squishy "go along to get along" faction of the Republican party that would rather be in power than get anything positive done. They go along with the progressives so that they can get invited to the good parties in DC.

The Tea Party faction isn't interested in the DC social scene, they are interested in dismantling this bloated sack of shit that our government has become.

And that is why they will win, and the Republican Party will henceforth do more than merely pay lip service to fiscal conservatism.

Rove has a good point in that by fracturing the conservatives

If Rove (and Castle, too) wasn't busy throwing a hissy-fit because Christine O'Donnell won the Delaware Republican primary by beating Castle, I might actually care about what he as to say.

But they are throwing a hissy-fit. Castle has had contact with Obama/Biden since the election and has not called O'Donnell to congratulate her (so far as I knew as of yesterday). Nor has Castle thrown his support behind his party's candidate.

Suck it up, Castle. You lost. It happens. Get over it. Support your party's candidate, or get thee to a new party.

Yeah, it's interesting how this is going down -- the things that are happening I didn't think would be happening quite this soon. The GOP establishment has been dreading the day when they would be forced by the Tea Party to choose sides. Well, that day is here. Some of them have chosen poorly. The window is still open for them to change their minds, but it won't be open for long.

There are one of three possible outcomes for the Republican Party: (1) the leadership gets on board with the Tea Party; (2) the leadership gets shoved aside and Tea Partiers take over; or (3) the leadership clings to its position, the Tea Partiers and most of the conservative base desert to form a new party, and the GOP that remains is reduced to the status of a rump party. Any way it goes, it will be the biggest American political party transformation in my lifetime -- bigger than the McGovernites taking over the Democratic Party in the early '70s.

My prediction. The Tea Party will win enough seats to be a viable 3rd party, it will quickly grow once people actually see it win things. (Human nature few back people they are told don't have a chance even if they believe in it).
However the US system is not set up for 3 real parties, so one of the 3 will die. My money is on the GOP dieing. It will take 8 yrs.

Dave's analysis of the future possibilities is spot on. Joe's prediction that Option #3 will occur is interesting but I suspect it will be #2. Let me explain why.

The despicable behavior of the GOP establishment in Delaware, and then Karl Rove's follow-up ad hominen attacks, illustrated just how entrenched the stench is amongst the GOP elitists. The members of the Tea Party aren't going to support it any more. For starters, they're speaking with their wallets. In just over 3 days since her victory, Christine O'Donnell has received well over $1.5 Million in donations. They're also speaking with their feet. Every single poll indicates a massive defeat of the Democrats and the Obama agenda on November 2nd.

Where things will really get interesting though is in 2011. I fully expect the "same old, same old" crowd of the GOP - ie. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, et al - will continue on as if nothing has changed, as if no Tea Party exists. But the Tea Party will "Castle them out" just like occurred this past Tuesday.

As has always been the case, most people can't recognize when they're in the middle of history. But more than sufficient numbers of Americans have been pushed too far by a cabal of elitists on the Far Left of the political spectrum who are absolutely deaf when it comes to any dissenting opinions. Not only are these elitists trying to fundamentally change America into what more closely resembles a European socialist welfare state, but they are unequivocally bankrupting it in the long term (monstrous debt) and the short term (extremely high unemployment).

After January 2008, when the fog of the rhetoric began to clear and the reality became crystal clear, average Americans naturally expected the political leaders on the opposite side of the aisle to fight against it. In some cases they did but in too many cases (Castle, Murkowski, etc.) they did not. It became painfully obvious that these allegedly Republican politicians were nothing more than Democrat-lites, more interested in enjoying the perks of Washington, DC than doing anything remotely close to why their supporters sent them there. So the people rose up and tossed the RINOs out of the running.

From the beginning, the Propaganda Wing of the Democrat Party (aka the Mainstream Media) told us that the Tea Partiers were an insignificant joke, that Rand Paul and Sharon Angle and Marco Rubio and Christine O'Donnell were mentally deranged and incapable of getting elected by "mainstream" Americans. They also told us that such politicians and all Tea Party members were: Racist, Sexist, Bigoted, Haters, Xenophobic, Homophobic, and Islamaphobic. In times past this was an effective way to silence all dissent. But the stakes are too high now and all Americans know this. So the Tea Party movement will continue to grow & get stronger.

There likely won't be an enormous singular civil war like event within the Republican Party. Instead the RINOs will be removed one by one, in much the same way that one pops the individual bubbles in a sheet of plastic bubble wrap. This will then set the stage in 2012 for a true choice between the policies of the Left and the policies of the Right. Notice that I quite deliberately didn't use the word "debate". One thing the current crop of Democrats don't do is debate. They besmirch & demonize & personally attack those that disagree with them, but they don't let the facts of issues be put on the table and honestly debated.

How will things turn out? I have great in the collective wisdom of the American people but only time will tell.