The “Tea Party” and “Yes We Can” are two sides of the same coin.

Think back two years.  October 2008, the improbable was happening.  Then Senator Obama’s dark horse presidential campaign held a significant lead in the home stretch.  Even more amazing, it was about to be swept over the finish line by Wall Street’s crumbling infrastructure–infrastructure built on a foundation of Neo Conservatism.

The slogan “Yes We Can” effectively summed up what candidate Obama was selling:  optimism in the face of wide-spread dissatisfaction over an already worsening economic environment and the Iraq war.  A close look at Senator Obama’s actual policies never occured.  The Republicans were in disarray.  Senator McCain was too busy shoring-up the right wing of the party to be mounting a serious campaign for the hearts and minds of moderates.

But had Mr. McCain been able to do so, perhaps he could have said this, “There is nothing new about Mr. Obama’s rhetoric.”   Oh there was talk about opportunity afforded by a new “green economy,” but there was no realistic roadmap on how to get there other than some reheated Keynesian thinking (and perhaps a dash of central-party planning).  Boiled down, for Obama and the Democrats, change meant returning to FDR-style policies.

Fast forward to today.  The Republicans are poised for big wins in the House and Senate.  This seems to be a reaction to the continuing awful economic environment, perhaps combined with an Obama backlash (political scientists tell us this happens to some degree with every first-term president).  But what horse are Republicans riding in this race? 

The Tea Party would like to believe it is the same one rode by Paul Revere himself, but if you believe that—well you probably belong to the movement.   No, if you take out the anger, and the immigration debate, from an economic policy perspective, this is the same stuff Ronald Reagan ran on.  Get the government out of the way and everything will be fine–not really any different from Milton Friedman and the Chicago School.

We're all mad here...

The reality is that neither idea is new.  Strict adherence to one or the other does not offer any new answers to the long-term debt and employment problem faced by the U.S. (and Europe and Japan for that matter).  Both extremes perpetuate the same idea, which lies at root of our problems:  that you can get something for nothing.  And, unfortunately, until the “you know what” really hits the fan, it seems unlikely that we are destined to make progress on the real issues—Social Security, health care, and defense. 

The good news is that it seems we’ll always have Washington to blame for our problems.

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