Tea Party’s Strategy Is a Proven Loser

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- In any negotiation, it is inadvisableto make threats that aren’t credible. Probably the only thingworse is to threaten actions that will end up helping the otherside. Yet the Tea Party-affiliated House Republicans aren’tsimply making this very mistake with the government shutdown;they are gearing up to do it again, on a grander and more fatalscale, with the debt ceiling.

Much as Arthur Scargill, leader of the U.K.’s NationalUnion of Mineworkers, did in the 1980s, the Tea Party todayappears to have a political death wish. Scargill ended up givingPrime Minister Margaret Thatcher exactly what she wanted -- aprotracted confrontation in which he came across as anextremist, eroding any popular support for the miners. Scargillgot a great deal of national attention, but the miners ended upwith very little, if anything. They had some legitimategrievances, but their attempt to force a democratic governmentinto full capitulation didn’t play well.