Will the Tea Party oust Boehner over his budget deal?

The last-minute budget deal to avert a government shutdown is popular with the public, and while many analysts see House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) as the big winner in the fight, Tea Party leaders disagree. The Tea Party Patriots dismissed Boehner's deal as an inadequate "hollow victory," and Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation derided Boehner as a "go-along, get-along Republican" who "doesn't have stomach for a fight." Phillips and other Tea Partiers are so upset that they're threatening to unseat Boehner through a 2012 primary challenge. Empty words or real threat?

The Tea Party can and will fire Boehner: After the speaker's repeated, craven caving to the Democrats, "the Tea Party has been sold out," says Michael Snyder at The American Dream. And if Tea Partiers are sincere about their "core issue," government spending, "then they must hold John Boehner accountable and go after his seat during the next primary season." I mean, $38 billion in cuts? That's not fiscal leadership, it's folding "like a $20 suit."

"Fire John Boehner — America watched Boehner fold like a $20 suit..."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The Tea Party is all talk: If this verbal "venom" is the only price Boehner pays for saving his party from a government shutdown, he "should probably rest easy," says Stephanie Mencimer in Mother Jones. Phillips, for example, may talk tough, but he'd "have trouble getting 20 people to show up at a Tea Party [rally] in his hometown." Any plan to oust the most powerful Republican in the country can't be taken seriously.

"Can Judson Phillips really 'primary Boehner'?"

Tea Partiers have already weakened Boehner — and themselves: Boehner needs to worry about now, not 2012, says Juan Williams in The Hill. With the Tea Party "wrapped around his neck like an albatross," Republicans are heading into the next round of budget talks looking like "reckless and shallow" zealots hooked on "hysterical stunt governing." The only winners from the Tea Party histrionics are the Democrats — a "weakened Boehner" won't get such a good deal next time.

"Speaker Boehner in the temple of Tea Party doom"