TEA PARTY INFLUENCE

UNTIL just recently Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have seemed resigned to a fairly heavy defeat by the Republicans in the November mid-term elections for Senate and Congress -- even to the possibility of losing the narrow control of the Senate which they have had since the 2008 elections.

But, suddenly, there is change in the political weather. Partly it comes from the President's apparent recovery of his oratorical skills in recent speeches. But perhaps more significantly it is the result of the growing influence of the so-called right-wing Tea Party movement which has infiltrated the Republican party and in four recent primaries to select candidates for the November polls has actually displaced the party's official choice.

The most startling result came this week from Delaware where the long-serving incumbent Congressman was beaten 53-47 per cent by the almost unknown Christine O'Donnell whose only previous public role was as organiser of the Christian group Saviour's Alliance for Lifting Truth. She was a rank outsider in the primary until the Tea Party movement backed her campaign with money and volunteers and Sarah Palin and the National Rifle Assocaition endorsed her. The Republicans need to win ten Senate seats to take the majority from the Democrats. It seemed likely that they would do this but many Republican voters may now be having second thoughts about supporting a party that harbours ultra-right extremists like Christine O'Donnell.