The tea party is losing

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
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Must suck to be a Tea-Partyer right about now. I guess that even the right-wing American public is seeing just how crazy the Tea Party is.

Yet another big Tea Party loss

Last night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decisively beat his tea party challenger by 24 percentage points. It's the latest big beat for the tea party, and further proof of a growing trend. While the tea party has been successful when pushing candidates to the right in open-seat Republican primaries, it hasn't had any luck kicking out GOP incumbents this year. And its candidates really haven't come close.

In Idaho on Tuesday, Rep. Mike Simpson easily beat his tea party opponent, Bryan Smith. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, former chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, won 59 percent of the vote in his March primary. His closest challenger, Rep. Steve Stockman -- who vanished to Russia for part of the campaign -- won 19 percent of the vote. Dwayne Stovall, whose claim to fame is his "Turtle Soup" campaign ad, won 11 percent of the vote.

In Georgia, former secretary of state Karen Handel, endorsed by Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and a handful of conservative organizations, did not make it into the Republican primary runoff. Reps. Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, also tea party favorites, weren't even close to making the runoff.

Earlier in May, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) beat his tea party challenger, J.D. Winteregg, by 59 percentage points.

On June 3, however, the tea party will have another chance to put an establishment politician out of work. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi and his tea party opponent, Chris McDaniel, have been battling for months, and it's a far closer race than the incumbent primaries that have already been decided. Cochran, matching the Republican incumbents who have come before him, has the support of nearly everyone in the old party guard. McDaniel, matching the tea party challengers who have come before him, doesn't. But, he does have the endorsement and financial backing of the Club for Growth and a few other tea party groups. In Kansas, incumbent Pat Roberts is also facing opposition from the right.

In McConnell's victory speech Tuesday, he said of Bevin, “He made me a stronger candidate." That's one way to look at it -- McConnell has definitely had a chance to hone his arguments in advance of what could be a bracing race against Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. There must be a cheaper way to take a refresher course in Campaigning 101, especially for a senator who has been in office for nearly 30 years. And there definitely should be a cheaper way for tea party Republicans to learn that running against Republican incumbents hasn't been working for them.
 

Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
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Must suck to be a Tea-Partyer right about now. I guess that even the right-wing American public is seeing just how crazy the Tea Party is.

Yet another big Tea Party loss

Shrug. They lost one race. They've lost before, and they'll lose plenty more. At least they're putting forth candidates, and at least they're making incumbents sweat.

But now and then they'll win a race.
 
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Mxylplyx

Diamond Member
Mar 21, 2007
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They are losing because the ideological center of the party has been drug so far to the right as a result of the tea party that you can hardly tell a difference between the tea party and the establishment any more. This will probably do little to ease the dysfunction in the Washington.
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
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#teabagtag

teabagging-for-jesus.jpg
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
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The Republican Party is no home for freedom loving people. GWB should have taught you all that.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
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The Republican Party is no home for freedom loving people. GWB should have taught you all that.
Agreed, but are the Tea Partiers any different? Seems to me that with 90% of them, drag out the GOP's social issues and fiscal issues are forgotten.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
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They are losing because the ideological center of the party has been drug so far to the right as a result of the tea party that you can hardly tell a difference between the tea party and the establishment any more.
-snip-

Yep.

The 'established' Repub candidates campaigned to the right. The phrased I've heard several times when campaign strategists and talking heads on TV discuss it is that the TEA Party was "victim of their own success".

Here in NC no one could see how the TEA Party candidate could run to the right of the 'mainstream' Repub candidate. There was no room.

Fern
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Yep.

The 'established' Repub candidates campaigned to the right. The phrased I've heard several times when campaign strategists and talking heads on TV discuss it is that the TEA Party was "victim of their own success".

Here in NC no one could see how the TEA Party candidate could run to the right of the 'mainstream' Repub candidate. There was no room.

Fern

This is pretty close to it. Although the trend predates the tea party, the average Republican has continued to go further and further to the right. I would say it is much more a case of Republicans becoming more like the tea party than the other way around.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
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This is pretty close to it. Although the trend predates the tea party, the average Republican has continued to go further and further to the right. I would say it is much more a case of Republicans becoming more like the tea party than the other way around.

I'm wondering how these establishment candidates who ran to the right will act once in office. I can't seem to recall too many elected TEA Party candidates criticized for not upholding their campaign promises, establishment candidates OTOH.....

Fern
 

michal1980

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2003
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Mitch McConnell - I'll run on the right, and lead from the left. Bummer that fool is still there.
 

fskimospy

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Mar 10, 2006
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I'm wondering how these establishment candidates who ran to the right will act once in office. I can't seem to recall too many elected TEA Party candidates criticized for not upholding their campaign promises, establishment candidates OTOH.....

Fern

I imagine that will depend on how much they are forced to bear the consequences of their votes. So far they haven't been tasked with actually governing anything and so they have basically been able to cast protest votes.

We can only hope they won't follow through on their campaign promises as it wouldn't be likely to get substantially more conservative policies passed, but it would further the breakdown in effective governance in the US.
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
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If anything, Fox News said recently that the Tea Party is surging like nothing before. Stop listening to biased left wing media.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Mitch McConnell - I'll run on the right, and lead from the left. Bummer that fool is still there.

McConnell has a first order DW-NOMINATE score of .407, which puts him squarely in the middle of the Republican caucus.

Then again, you appear to be so far to the right I imagine basically all of congress seems to be leftist to you.
 

ElMonoDelMar

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Apr 29, 2004
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I imagine that will depend on how much they are forced to bear the consequences of their votes. So far they haven't been tasked with actually governing anything and so they have basically been able to cast protest votes.

We can only hope they won't follow through on their campaign promises as it wouldn't be likely to get substantially more conservative policies passed, but it would further the breakdown in effective governance in the US.

Scott Brown comes to mind as a TeaBagger that was quickly labeled a RINO after he took office.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Scott Brown comes to mind as a TeaBagger that was quickly labeled a RINO after he took office.

One easy thing to forget is a lot of these 'establishment' Republicans that everyone complains about being RINOs were elected back in the 1990's. At that time they were considered ultraconservatives.

Political science literature shows pretty clearly that politicians' voting preferences are reasonably stable over time. What that means is what the Republican Party considered very conservative in the early 90's is now unacceptably liberal.

That's how much they have radicalized. Scary stuff.
 

Anarchist420

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tells me it will be christie (or bush) vs. clinton. and then u.s.g. will hopefully collapse. no inventions come from the eu and that is because they have excessive public spending.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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No joke, you would think they would be cheering on the Tea Party candidate so their candidate wouldn't be running against an incumbent in November.

This isn't necessarily important though. Tea Party candidates often challenge incumbents because they can generally only win in heavily Republican areas.

You don't see Tea Party candidates run in open, competitive elections that often because they lose because they are far too radical. I mean think about it: Nevada HATES Harry Reid, yet they still re-elected him in an extraordinarily Republican leaning year. Why? Because the Tea Party nominated someone insane.
 

Londo_Jowo

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Jan 31, 2010
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This isn't necessarily important though. Tea Party candidates often challenge incumbents because they can generally only win in heavily Republican areas.

You don't see Tea Party candidates run in open, competitive elections that often because they lose because they are far too radical. I mean think about it: Nevada HATES Harry Reid, yet they still re-elected him in an extraordinarily Republican leaning year. Why? Because the Tea Party nominated someone insane.

Ted Cruz did quite well in 2012.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Ted Cruz did quite well in 2012.

Yes, he did quite well in a state that Romney won by 16 points. That's not a competitive election. When you hear about Tea Party people going against incumbents it's in the primary, which already has a radicalized and small voter base.

It is every Democratic candidate's dream that the Republicans elect a tea party person to challenge them. If they are in anything but a heavily Republican state that all but guarantees victory and even if they are in a red leaning state it usually makes them more likely to win. (last time I checked the tea party had a favorability rating of about 30%) Somehow this makes them slightly less popular than even the Republican Party according to fairly recent polls. (Democrats clock in about 10 points higher than either)
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
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Agreed, but are the Tea Partiers any different? Seems to me that with 90% of them, drag out the GOP's social issues and fiscal issues are forgotten.

A fair concern. If they turn out to be nothing more than anti-Obama hardcore GOP then they are of little interest to me. Of course, like all major players, some of the rhetoric surrounding them is red meat for Libertarians. Facts are often more disappointing than fiction however.

Everybody wants my vote, few are worthy of it.
 

Kadarin

Lifer
Nov 23, 2001
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If anything, Fox News said recently that the Tea Party is surging like nothing before. Stop listening to biased left wing media.

The same Fox News that was genuinely surprised and shocked that Obama won in '12, because they believed their own echo chamber? :)
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
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You don't see Tea Party candidates run in open, competitive elections that often because they lose because they are far too radical. I mean think about it: Nevada HATES Harry Reid, yet they still re-elected him in an extraordinarily Republican leaning year. Why? Because the Tea Party nominated someone insane.

The problem is there is no Tea Party. The concept was great... focus on fiscal conservatism, but it has morphed into something that is not attractive to your average independent voter. Any person or any group can slap the tea party label on themselves no matter how insane they are or how far they are from the original message of too much taxation and spending by the federal government.