Given the candidates on offer and the pressure to rally around the eventual GOP nominee, the movement is likely to be reabsorbed into the establishment.

First Sarah Palin didn't run, and the documentary about her disappointed at the box office. Then a series of Tea Party friendly candidates jumped into the race. But neither Michele Bachmann nor Rick Perry nor Herman Cain could withstand the scrutiny of a presidential run.

As if to underscore the reversal of fortune, Bachmann, whose star was born with the Tea Party, finished sixth in the Iowa caucuses. And the winner of the first-in-the-nation contest? It was a virtual tie between Mitt Romney, the preferred nominee of moderates in the establishment, and Rick Santorum, arguably the man whose political philosophy is most antithetical to that of Tea Partiers, being the closest to the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush. Now all the candidates not named Romney seem to be fading, save Ron Paul, who has been deemed an unacceptable candidate by the Republican establishment, the religious right, and neocons alike.

What happened to the Tea Party?

Early as it is in primary season, with the GOP race still focused on New Hampshire, and South Carolina after that, there doesn't seem to be any plausible scenario that will permit the Tea Party to maintain a consistent small government message and play any meaningful role in Election 2012. If Mitt Romney wins, the movement, or the vast majority of those in it, will find themselves supporting a flip-flopping Northeastern moderate who once passed an individual mandate in health care -- a calculated compromise with views antithetical to everything Tea Partiers have preached.