Arianna discussed the Tea Party and their influence on the 2010 midterm elections as part of a roundtable on ABC's "This Week," together with George Will, Kate Zernike, and Jonathan Karl.
"You heard Austan Goolsbee say that [unemployment] is likely to stay high for quite a while," host Christiana Amanpour posed to the group. "Is this what's empowering the Tea Party movement, and what do you think is going to happen, for example, in the primaries that are coming up this week?"
"The economic anxiety is certainly a part of it, and the sense that we're spending more money than we have to spend," Zernike replied. "I think these primaries are going to be very interesting. We've got some primaries in New Hampshire -- I think that's probably going to swing with the establishment candidate, Kelly Ayotte in the Senate. We've got of course the Delaware Senate race, which many are looking at as a Tea Party election, and if this woman Christine O'Donnell is elected, I think it will be a boon for Democrats."
"But here is the irony," Arianna said. "You have about 10 congressional races where a third-party independent candidate may make the difference and help the Democrats. But in the end, there is such an overwhelming anger in the country. You have two-thirds of Americans who think that their children are not going to do as well as they are doing. So this is a very profound anger. Politics is a zero-sum game. If they don't vote for the party who is in charge right now, they'll vote for Republicans. Even though they're going to make this worse for their children, it doesn't matter, they don't have another choice."
"I think Arianna's right," Zernike continued. "The Tea Party is really more a state of mind than a movement. People may not identify themselves as Tea Party members but it is a wave year, and they are supporting that viewpoint and they are looking for change."
The Obama administration has "completely underestimated the economic crisis," Arianna went on. "They told us that unemployment was going to be down to 8 percent. So right now the American people have a choice between inadequate solutions from the Democrats or laughable solutions from the Republicans. Thanks god in Nevada they can vote for 'None of the above'!"
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