2014 has far fewer Tea Party Republican candidates for the House and especially the Senate than they have recent elections. I miss running against the likes of Sharon “Second Amendment Solution” Angle, Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell and Rick “Google my name” Santorum. TEAbuggery can be damn useful at election time. It gives voters Republicans to laugh at! Some journalist say that the Tea Party is on the way out, but is the Tea Party really losing?
The emerging conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is being vanquished by the GOP establishment, based solely on the fact it is beating primary challengers, is exceedingly myopic. If you believe that, you have a very superficial view of what constitutes “winning.” These primaries are forcing the allegedly mainstream candidates to move far to the right and the performance of the past few years proves that when this happens the Party stays far right as a result of this threat. Primaries can be very effective tools if used properly, and if they are backed up by money and influence, which the far right certainly is, they are formidable instruments of discipline.
Ed Kilgore did an excellent survey of these so-called victories for the voices of reason at Talking Points Memo earlier this week:
Yesterday’s winner Pat Roberts, who already sported lifetime ratings of 86 percent from both the American Conservative Union and Americans for Prosperity, went far out of his way to propitiate the ideological gods of movement conservatism as he fought for reelection. He voted against an appropriations measure that included a project he had long sought for his alma mater, Kansas State University, and opposed a UN Treaty banning discrimination against people with disabilities over the objections of his revered Kansas Senate predecessors Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum.
We’ve seen the same dynamic with “establishment” winners Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and “moderate outsider” David Perdue of Georgia — and above all Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whose voting record tilted hard right in anticipation of his primary fight with Matt Bevin. There’s been a virtual cavalcade in the primaries of entire fields tilting against debt limit increases, comprehensive immigration reform (or even limited legalization of undocumented workers), any positive government role in economic policy, and of course, any accommodations for legalized abortion or same-sex marriage.
As Kilgore has pointed out endlessly on his blog at Washington Monthly, there really is very little daylight between them in the first place…
Inserted from <AlterNet>
This year, the so-called establishment Republicans are winning the primaries, but only because they have adopted the same extremist policies as the Tea Baggers. Incumbents can take home a record of obstruction, sabotage and sedition that serves to insulate them from threats of TEAbuggery. The 0.1% billionaires that tell the Tea Party what to think, what to say and who to hate are getting the same job performance from the so-called establishment candidates. So the Tea Party isn’t losing at all. If this keeps up, Bought Bitch Mitch will have to change his name to Bought Bubba Bagger!
6 Responses to “Is the Tea Party Really Losing?”
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I think they are winning ground by pushing the GOP further to the Reich of Center.
Certainly anyone who thinks the Tea Party is losing lacks understanding of the political spectrum Of course I just described Op-Ed writers, didn't I? Progressive groups tring to hold ground are not doing it, which is why some Progressive groups are being formed to push past holding ground in the hope of actually getting somewhere. The short game has been disappointing but maybe it will help in the long run. Incidentally, the Tea Party seems to have dropped or forgotten the one good idea they did have – that of putting bankers in prison. Pity.
Losing? No and yes! Maybe the witches comment nuts. But the Cruz nuts??? Never! Just more invisible. After all 2014 elections are coming. Take the Koch Brothers who are embracing the hispanic community. No we have 2016 presidential elections. They are just getting warmed up
The Tea Party is not losing, they are absorbing the rest of the Republican party into their concepts. Scary stuff. Mitch is 4 points ahead of Alison in the polls today, the result of all that Koch money being spent on his ads accusing her of killing the coal jobs. Too few are willing to educate themselves on what is really happening to our country and they are letting the RIGHT take over.
Using Boehner as an example, he was originally elected in the November 1990 election as the Republican representative of Ohio's 8th district. The Tea Party didn't start building steam until about 2007 when Ron Paul, Republican from Texas, started stirring the pot. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
"The origins of the current Tea Party movement can be traced back to circa 2007. The movement's beginnings were kick-started by Republican Congressman Dr. Ron Paul in 2007. His GOP presidential campaign received a 24 hour, record breaking, money bomb on December 16, 2007; which is the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. This event directly contributed to creating a libertarian revival and divide in the Republican Party."
Look at Boehner now. He predates the Tea Party and has moved further to the right. Was he originally very conservative? I doubt it. He has probably gravitated there in hopes of keeping his job as Speaker . . . the man that would be king . . . 3rd in line to the throne. Perhaps that is one reason he drinks . . . he doesn't like moving so far to the right to accommodate a bunch of whiney takedown artists. That's what the Tea Party is . . . a bunch of whiney takedown artists . . . people willing to sell their souls to get their way. Of course there are also the theocrats who are also chipping away at the Republlican Party . . . and these guys are the socially conservative nutters.
I've seen a couple of times where I thought that Boehner was starting to show some humanity, and then BAM! the venus fly trap has him again and the glimmer of a human side disappears.
Look at Eric Cantor. He was part of that Tea Party movement yet he lost his primary to a more conservative Tea Bagger.
Yep, the Republicans are moving further and further right.
Amen to all!