GOP + Tea Party = Obama Defeat

That's the message coming from Haley Barbour, former RNC chairman, current governor of Mississippi, and possible 2012 presidential candidate:

Christine O'Donnell's upset victory in last week's Delaware GOP Senate primary has generated a lot of talk in the media about where the tea party and the GOP are headed.

Tea party voters have been incited to political action by the policies of the Obama administration and the Pelosi-Reid Congress. These include a heretofore unimaginable federal spending spree, a failed package of stimulus programs, a government takeover of our health-care system, and the Democrats' insistence on raising taxes, particularly on job creators, even though job creation is our country's greatest need.

Tea party voters are not only motivated by the effect these terrible policies are having on them—they are worried about America's future. They fear that their children and grandchildren won't inherit the same country they inherited from their parents and grandparents. What they know with certainty is that future generations will be saddled with paying back the trillions in debt that the Obama administration and Congress are running up with so little positive result.

Replace "tea party" with "Republican" in every instance above, and each description would remain totally accurate. On the issues foremost in voters' minds—the economy, jobs, spending, taxes, debt and deficits—the overwhelming majority of tea party voters and Republican voters are in strong agreement.

That is why it was tremendously important for Republican prospects in the 2010 elections that tea partiers did not run as independents or third-party candidates. To do so would have split the votes of those who know the Obama-Pelosi-Reid policies don't work and are hurting our economy.

Every Republican should be pleased that these tea party candidates chose to run in our primaries. In the vast majority of cases, their participation was welcomed, even cultivated, by GOP leaders—and rightly so.

Read the rest of his analysis here.

Barbour knows a thing or two about building a party. He was a very successful RNC Chairman and could be a good guy to build the relationship between the Tea Party independents and the GOP.

Some of the GOP insiders really burned bridges over the Christine O'Donnell race in Delaware, and that damage needs to be fixed before the Tea Party crowd will be comfortable working with the Republicans.