Will ‘The People’s Surge’ Be the Last Big Anti-Health Care Reform Rally?

There’s some waning enthusiasm in the most powerful Tea Party-organizing groups for staging more protests against health care reform legislation. In comparison to the “House call” rallies that preceded the House and Senate votes on reform, the much-reported-on “Take the Town Halls to Washington” campaign has made no visible impact so far — it was first reported five days ago — outside of point-and-laugh coverage on liberal blogs.

The rally to watch might be the March 16 “People’s Surge” being organized by FreedomWorks. Only 18 people have officially signed on so far, but FreedomWorks knows how to put these things together. That could double whatever efforts the “Take the Town Halls” coalition, of activists like Mark Skoda and Michael Patrick Leahy, can muster. But for the first time I’m sensing fatigue over this issue among Tea Party groups. The fate of this bill rests with a small number of members of Congress — the fate of their groups (i.e., whether they take over the GOP) rests on the result of primaries and elections that are coming on fast.