The "Tea Party effect"

(The combination of a busy month, along with some writers fatigue (not to be confused with writers block), lead me to take a month away from posting on my politics/philosophy blog)...

Was anyone really surprised by the election results earlier this month? I know I wasn't, and all of my friends who I had warned that this would happen, came around to apologize to me afterwards for thinking I was off my rocker that the Tea Party could have the impact which they had.
I make secret about my differences with the Tea Party: I side with their general position on the Constitution, and their economic ideologies, but I take great issue with their insistence on bringing religion-specifically Christianity-into every one of their positions, and as the basis for many of their arguments. But, like the Tea Party or not, you have to respect them for the much needed change which they are bringing to the political climate here in America. Whether it is a change that will be beneficial to our country is yet to be seen, but it is a change which we needed decades ago-that of the people dictating to Congress, and not the other way around...

The truth of the matter is that state and nationally elected leaders had grown corrupt, complacent and entitled to their positions. Many had become what the founding fathers of our Constitution warned us against-Aristocrats. They ran on their name recognition alone, and nothing more. They presented no real ideas for fixing the plethora of problems our nation faces, while lining their pockets with special interest dollars. In sum, they were the problem.
This months elections proved that the Tea Party had struck a cord-particularly among registered independents; and even though Democrats managed to get most of their entitlement class out to vote, they were not match for the masses of Independent voters who agreed with the Tea Party in that the problem with national politics was the career politicians who obviously had no ones interests at heart, except their own. Fortunately, for all of us, the effect of the Tea Party carried only so far as to cause wholesale changes in the House of Representatives-where we saw the greatest turn over in representation since the Great Depression. It is in the House where most of the problems with our national politics reside, and it was in the House where the Independent voters had the greatest impact-knocking out nearly every incumbent seeking reelection (too bad Nancy Pelosi couldn't have been sent packing, but you can't win them all). Had the Tea Party effect carried into the Senate, I would have some serious reasons to be just as concerned about the direction our country was heading into, as I do now about the direction is it already heading down. Luckily, the Independent voters got it right, and, for the most part, only made wholesale changes to that branch of our national legislature which is meant to represent us-the people...

My only hope is that the Tea Party doesn't let this success go to their heads.
I hope they keep their grass roots status and pay homage to those which they owe their recent electoral success too-the Independents. I hope that they stick to their guns, so to speak (no pun intended), and stay on those whom they helped elect to stay true to their campaign words of adhering to the will of the people.
I also hope that they are willing to drop their religious positions in their politics. If they are willing to do these 3 things, then the Tea Party is, in my opinion, exactly the force of will and passion our nation needs right now to turn our country around.