| ID | 134797 |
| Title Proper | Has the tea party era radicalized the republican party |
| Other Title Information | evidence from text analysis of the 2008 and 2012 republican primary debates |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Jenne, Erin K ; Littvay, Levente ; Medzihorsky, Juraj |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Much ink has been spilled to describe the emergence and likely influence of the Tea Party on the American political landscape. Pundits and journalists declared that the emergence of the Tea Party movement pushed the Republican Party to a more extreme ideological position, which is generally anti-Washington. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the ideological positions taken by candidates in the 2008 and 2012 pre-Iowa caucus Republican presidential-primary debates. To establish the positions, we used the debate transcripts and a text-analytic technique that placed the candidates on a single dimension. Findings show that, overall, the 2012 candidates moved closer to an anti-Washington ideology—associated with the Tea Party movement—and away from the more traditional social conservative Republican ideology, which was more salient in the 2008 debates. Both Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, the two candidates who ran in both elections, shifted significantly in the ideological direction associated with the Tea Party. |
| `In' analytical Note | Political Science and Politics Vol.47, No.4; Oct.2014: p.806-812 |
| Journal Source | Political Science and Politics 2014-12 47, 4 |
| Standard Number | United States – US |