ABSTRACT
After the congressional elections in November 2010, the Tea Party was the talk of the town. Both left-wing and right-wing media pundits declared "the" Tea Party to be the (only) winner, and all focus was on the right's new stars such as Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida. Even before the Republican primaries started for the 2012 elections, the media were unified in their narrative: the Tea Party was going to select the GOP's presidential nominee. At the height of the election campaign, the Tea Party was almost invisible. The campaign was dominated by the (Super) PACs (political action committees) of Mitt Romney and GOP establishment operatives like Karl Rove, who together spent the astounding amount of over $310 million. It is a paradox, though, that immigration is for the Tea Party movement both a strength and a weakness – even if not all Tea Partiers consider immigration a high priority.
