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Yes, conservatives are gradually moving Romney's way, and that may accelerate. Tea Partiers and other GOP conservatives want above all to beat Obama. As Romney focuses more and more on challenging the president, that may help him with conservatives, as does the constant reiteration of hard-line right promises.

A very interesting question. Most grassroots Tea Partiers believe Social Security, Medicare, and veterans' benefits are legitimate -- especially for older folks like themselves who have "paid their dues" as hardworking Americans.  But elite Tea Party-linked groups want to shrink and privatize these programs.  The compromise might be to do that only for younger people, leaving current older beneficiaries untouched.  Many grassroots Tea Partiers feel that younger people are shirking and trying to get more than they deserve, so they might support FUTURE cuts in Social Security and Medicare.  That is what I expect Romney to do if he is elected president.

All I can say is that Vanessa Williamson and I took much more time to sit down and talk with Tea Party people at the grassroots than others who have written about these people.  We got to know quite a few as individuals and stay in touch.  A number have told us they think we are fair in portraying them.   Our book is sparing about judgements.   It mainly describes what he heard and saw and learned from studying national surveys and media coverage.  We leave the judgements to readers.   Some on the left dislike the book because we do NOT condemn Tea Partiers!

Parties with clear messages do not worry me, because that can help voters figure out what they want to support. But it does worry me to see movements that try to force elected representatives to refuse give and take and compromise, because our democracy cannot work without compromises worked out by elected representatives who respect one another.

A fair question.   We found quite a few things we did not expect, and we liked many of the people we spoke withm and say as much in the book.   We have compared our conclusions and evidence with those of scholars who are very conservative in their personal political views, and we agree on the key findings.  That is how the scholarly community works.   As for conservatives studying a leftist movement, they would need to follow the same standards of gathering evidence and sharing it with other scholars.  Our book is not a political screed, and we restrict our evaluations to the conclusion. You may notice if you read the conclusion, that we say the citizen activism in the Tea Party is "wonderful" even as we raise questions about a lack of tolerance.   We say that Tea Partiers know the political process even better than liberals often do. Yet when we heard things that were just plain factually false, we say so. 

You make the same point that many of the Tea Party people we talked with made to us -- that Romney is not authentic, that he cannot be trusted.   Even when Romney repeats his newfound conservative positions again and again, many doubt his sincerity.  All I can say as a political scientist is that candidates who say things IN PUBLIC in a presidential campaign usually try to carry through once in office.

Not all Tea Party voters are willing to accept Romney, and many of those who refuse to support him would cite the earlier positions you mention.  Rival GOP primary candidates point out a lot of these things about Romney!

I am not sure Romney refuses to pander.  Remember his recent comment about not caring about the very poor -- just real Americans?  That was an answer designed to appeal to Tea Partiers who think of themselves as hard-working Americans taxed to give benefits to "freeloaders."

You make a good point: Romnney goes with the political wind.  But remember, the winds in his own party, the Republican Party, blow hard to the right these days. And if Romney is elected, he will probably serve along with a Republican-led House and Senate in which there are many fiercely right-wing legislators.   He will also be worried about running in Republican primaries for reelection in 2016.  So that means Romney would sign the extreme right bills that Republicans in Congress would send to his desk.  I don't think he will have much room for manuever.

He will carry through many of the promises he has made to the right -- but fudge on some others.  A lot depends on whether he is pressed by very conservative leaders in the House and Senate -- and by grassroots activists on the right.  Remember, a lot of GOP officeholders now are worried about being challenged in primary elections, so they do as much as they need to do to keep activist conservative voters relatively happy and satisfy big money funders who might bankroll challengers.  Still, no president makes ideological activists entirely happy.    And Romney would have a good excuse not to carry through on promises -- such as getting rid of ObamaCare -- if Democrats control part of Congress.

I have not seen any such study and I am not sure I find what you report plausible.  The Tea Party people we met were well-educated and not dumb.  National surveys show that Tea Party supporters are slightly above average in education.   Educated is not the same thing as operating with factually accurate information, however.  Many believe things that are not factually accurate.

He has already taken a lot of them -- that was my point in the OpEd yesterday.  Romney promises to crack down on illegal immigrants and get rid of Obama's health reform -- these are key promises grassroots Tea Partiers want to hear.   And Romney also makes promises to the fat cat allies of the Tea Party who want lower taxes on the super-rich, removal of regulations on the financial sector and businesses, and privatization of Social Security and Medicare for the future.  Romney is making all the right promises to attract both grassroots and elite support in the Tea Party.