US presidential race loses fizz for Tea Party

With their favoured candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination lagging or out of the race, many US Tea Party activists are shifting focus to the struggle for control of the US Senate.
The fizz has gone out of the presidential contest for some supporters of the fiscally conservative movement now that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is not running and Texas Governor Rick Perry and congresswoman Michele Bachmann are slipping in polls.
"No one is going to get perfect in a general election candidate. That is why we think the Senate is a better place to focus," said Matt Kibbe, president and chief executive of the libertarian FreedomWorks, a Tea Party group.
In the 2010 mid-term elections, Tea Party opposition to President Barack Obama's policies played a big role in slashing the Democrats' majority in the 100-member Senate to just six seats and eliminating their majority in the House of Representatives.
With 23 of the 33 Senate seats up for grabs next year now held by Democrats, and a wave of public hostility to incumbents, Tea Party activists said they looked forward to more Republican gains in 2012.
"We'll maintain the House without a problem. We absolutely have to take back the Senate and focus on that and not let presidential politics consume all of our time and energy," said Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the California-based Tea Party Express Political Action Committee.
Some of the eight to 10 Senate seats seen as very competitive next year are in Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio, states where Tea Party groups had a big impact in 2010 and during state legislative sessions, fuelling optimism about next year, Kibbe said.
"If the issues are the economy and jobs, the burden of spending and the national debt, those are swing issues that Tea Partiers care about most - there is a nice confluence in what motivates independent voters and what motivates Tea Partiers," he said.
Fuelling the Tea Party's disenchantment with the Republican presidential race are suspicions that front-runner Mitt Romney is too moderate and not committed to core conservative causes. The Tea Party favours lower spending and smaller government.