Rick Santelli as Evidence of the State of the Tea Party

Rick Santelli did a Santelli exchange on CNBC this morning, which I thought was important to re-post as an indicator of how fractured the Republican/Tea Party ideology has become as a result of the beating that the Republicans took in last fall's election.

In this morning's editorial, Santelli focuses on morality and specifically concedes a few important points: 1) fiscal conservatives have the burden of proof and are going to have a hard time defending their position because 2) the election was a referendum on taxation/spending which the Republicans lost and 3) the Democrats have the short term moral high-ground because cutting deficits means withholding payments from seniors, etc.  He rounds out the editorial by warning that the long term morality of saddling future generations with debt is ultimately more important, but his tone suggested to me that he realizes that he's effectively lost the battle for the foreseeable future.  He even admits that most people "make fun" of the way he frames the debate.

Santelli is credited as an ideological father of the Tea Party movement which initially put deficit spending by government as the centerpiece of its platform (but has since been rebranded as a movement of ultra-conservative Republicans).  I suspect that he is a reasonable indicator of the general sentiment shared by many Tea Partiers who are seeing their ideology falter in public opinion.  Ultimately I think that this has some bearing on how the debt ceiling talks play out, because in 2011 freshmen Tea Partiers were leading the charge.  In the current environment they may not be so emboldened.

Number of Treasury Secretaries by President

It's expected that Obama will announce tomorrow that Jack Lew will be replacing Tim Geithner as Treasury secretary.  Starting with Alexander Hamilton, there have been 43 presidents but 75 Treasury secretaries.  Lew will be the 76th.

Below is a chart of the number of Treasury secretaries by presidency.  Two term presidents are highlighted.  Surprisingly, there have only been 13 presidents to serve two full terms.  On average each of those presidents has had 2.5 men serve as the head of Treasury (there has never been a woman serve), so there's a decent chance there will be at least one more before Obama's done.

FDR, who served longer than any other president, including for the bulk of the depression, only had two men helm Treasury.  Meanwhile two of the four presidents who had four Treasury secretaries weren't even full one term presidents.  Tyler and Arthur both took over from men who died in office.

What's Wrong With the Republican Party?

I happened to catch this interview last night on NBC which is definitely worth watching.  Aside from the unfortunate phrasing "Latino problem" Mike Murphy strikes me as a pragmatic strategist who is correctly diagnosing the underlying problems for the Republican party.  Last night's election proved that Republican party conservatism is anachronistic and will be need to be revamped before 2014 and 2016 if the party wants to remain relevant.

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History of Party Control of US Congress

Apologies for back to back political posts, but it seems to be all that anyone is talking about until tomorrow is over.

Many political scientists argue that "realigning" elections happen in the US about once every 35 years.  In these elections, there is a political paradigm shift and a redivision of the electorate along new party lines.  Generally these realignments happen in conjunction with a major historical friction like the Civil War or the Great Depression.

In American history most agree that realigning elections happened in 1828 (Jackson), 1860 (Lincoln), 1896 (McKinley) and 1932 (Roosevelt).  There's some dispute about whether one happened in 1968 with Nixon or 1980 with Reagan, although I tend to believe that we're still in a system representing the vestiges of the New Deal Coalition (1932).  

Either way, it can be argued that the US political system is long overdue for a seismic fundamental shift.  I think that growing interest in Libertarianism against the backdrop of high public debt and extreme monetary policy is indicative of a bubbling change in the electorate, but while these ideas have begun to influence the conversation (e.g. through the tea party and Ron Paul), we're not at a paradigm shift quite yet.

For some perspective, below is a chart showing the history of political party control of congress.  The exact political epochs are debatable from historian to historian, but I based the labels in the graph loosely on the five party systems defined by wikipedia.

Click to Enlarge.  Third Parties and Independents Excluded.  Data source: Office of the House Clerk