Tempering the Tea Party in 2011?

An interesting piece at LAT, "'Tea Party' Activists Keep Watch on Congress' New Class."

With a GOP majority now in the House, the role of the tea party in politics and policy will change. The Times' piece points out the polarizing tendency between purity and pragmatism, and considering the longstanding insight that Members of Congress are "single-minded seekers of reelection," I'm confident that purity will be taking a backseat to pragmatism and party unity. As noted at the article:

Many grass-roots movements have learned how hard it is to remain outsiders in a place run by insiders and still accomplish something, said Martin Cohen, a professor of political science at James Madison University, who is studying the tea party movement and its parallels to the rise of the Christian right in the 1980s and 1990s.

In Washington, vowing not to compromise can be a self-imposed exile into irrelevancy. Ideological purity is in short supply. The lure of a party power can be strong. And the currency of the movement is its grass-roots engagement, Cohen said, something famously tricky to maintain in the face of defeats.

"If I had to bet on whether they would change Washington or whether Washington would change them, I would bet on Washington," he said.

Sounds about right, and more at the link.

RELATED: At NYT, "Conservative Seeks Political Balance." Plus all the latest at Memeorandum, especially, "G.O.P. Newcomers Set Out to Undo Obama Victories."