January 19, 2012
E.J. Dionne looks at the reasons why the Tea Party's push to craft a variety of GOP populism has hit the skids. EJ wrote his column before the news that the most aggressive populist in the race, Rick Perry, was dropping out and throwing his support behind Newt Gingrich, who practices a kind of populism of his own, but his argument makes sense: The GOP can always find a way to live with "a Harvard-educated private-equity specialist" like Mitt Romney.