Politico: Tea Party Challenge to GOP Senators an 'Expensive Headache'

In his Saturday Playbook email, Politico’s Mike Allen defended GOP establishment Senators like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Lamar Alexander and others facing Tea Party challengers as up against nothing more than an “expensive headache” they will defeat.

Allen, a denizen of D.C. political establishment, highlighted two news stories to make his point: One from the New York Times, and the other from the Associated Press. The New York Times’ Jennifer Steinhauser reported with Jonathan Weisman on the front page of the Gray Lady on Saturday that “[d]espite their careful efforts, some of the best-known and most influential Republicans in the Senate have been unable to shake threats from the right and have attracted rivals who portray these lawmakers as a central part of the problem in Washington.”

“In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, the party's Senate leader, is fending off a charismatic and wealthy conservative challenger,” they wrote, referring to businessman Matt Bevin’s candidacy against McConnell.

They also referred to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as a “reliably conservative voice on foreign policy” while noting that he has drawn three primary challengers: State Sen. Lee Bright, businesswoman and graduate of The Citadel Nancy Mace and conservative activist and computer programmer Richard Cash.

"In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham , one of the Senate's most reliably conservative voices on foreign policy, is being painted by primary opponents as a veritable clone of President Obama,” the New York Times reporters wrote.

“In Tennessee, Tea Party activists have vowed to take out Lamar Alexander,” they added. State Rep. Joe Carr has announced his candidacy there, and other potential candidates may soon get involved. A grass-roots "Beat Lamar" effort is sponsoring candidate forums throughout the states.

Continuation of article:

Politico’s Allen also cited the Associated Press’ Erik Schelzig and Ken Thomas, who together wrote about how the GOP establishment incumbents like McConnell, Graham and Alexander have built massive war chests of campaign money to attack their Tea Party challengers.

The AP writers reported that Alexander and McConnell have used scorched-earth defensive tactics to protect themselves from the Tea Party. “Call it the Revenge of the Incumbents: Alexander is the latest Senate Republican staring down a primary challenge with aggressive tactics aimed at blunting any early momentum from tea party-backed opposition,” they wrote. “The early moves seek to avoid the fate of former Senate colleagues who were bounced by tea party challengers in 2010 and 2012. In Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has scorched challenger Matt Bevin with stinging ads accusing him of accepting government bailouts to help his family business and embellishing his academic background. Bevin, with help from tea party supporters, has responded with his own accusations, labeling the Senate leader ‘Mudslinging Mitch’ and tarring him for supporting the Wall Street bailout in 2008.”

While Graham has yet to target any of his three Tea Party primary challengers, the AP writers note he has the money to do so.

“South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has drawn criticism from conservatives for pushing immigration reform, has raised more than $6 million for his re-election and could be helped by a crowded primary field that includes three conservative opponents,” they wrote.

The AP reporters apparently don't understand that South Carolina uses a run-off system for its primary elections. If a candidate fails to receive 50% of the vote, the top two voter-getters face off in a run-off. A crowded primary field makes it more likely that Graham fails to receive 50% of the vote.

While each of those stories, from the AP and the New York Times, are interesting in their own right, Politico’s Mike Allen takes them and then cites anonymous establishment sources to declare preemptively that the establishment GOP senators will survive, and the Tea Party will lose. Allen peddled this conventional wisdom in a section of his morning Playbook email he called “PLAYBOOK FACTS OF LIFE.”

“Conversations with the best-wired Republicans suggest the N.Y. Times take is right about the short term, while AP is more correct about the long run: The primary challengers are definitely an expensive headache -- and will be a distraction during a crazy fall at the Capitol,” Allen wrote. “But if McConnell loses, it'll be in the general (and still remote chance), not the primary. Graham could get a scare in the primary, but is expected to survive.”

Of course the establishment, what Allen calls the "best-wired Republicans," is going to say the establishment is going to win. But Allen fails to recognize that.

Sure, Allen might be right in the end on all of or some of these candidacies. Conservative insurgency candidates need to overcome a lot more hurdles than establishment folks. But for Allen to preemptively declare the Tea Party movement dead seems a bit of a stretch. We’ll see what happens in the end. Remember when they said Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Lee were never going to win?

Time for sniping has ended and activism begins. By printing up FR postings that apply to certain groups and leafleting their parking lots they use to meet for any reason.

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WHAT DID YOU EXPECT ?
This address to the Irish accompanied by his usual entourage of hundreds made during his stay in europe for the June 2013 Summit 8 conference might make it to the national scene but our media will sit on it.

The democrat party after taking complete control of everything instument of govermnet the Presidentcy, House and Senate in 2008. Lost the House in 2010 thanks to the opposition by loosely organized groups known as the tea party later characterized by members of the administration as “terrorists”. But demonstrated it was completely taken over by socialists when the word and reference to GOD was removed at their 2012 national convention. A fact that went un-noticed, un-touched, un-mentioned, and un-used by the RINOS and GOPES (GOP elite snobs) during that presidential 2012 election and now who are still running todays Republican party.

Even after reconsideration the decision was derided by the majority because it was re-installed over a majority voice vote supporting the removal.

If this were a political party in a parlimentary system it would be hyphenated and would (and should despite the difference) be refered to as the Demo-Com party. While the RINOS and GOPES can’t even call them “socialist.”.But at least they claim a belief and many support the sanctity of life and Christian/Catholic schools if they don’t or lie,but at least you can give the RINOS and GOPES the boot..

But any Catholic or Christian claiming to belong to the “demo-com” party is a hyprocrite and should be confronted, isolated, and treated with disgust and distain. It’s time to understand and face the facts that everything that has been changed since that time including discarding the traditional concept of what democrats were. They have come out of the closet and government is in your face, your house,your religion,and your pocketbook....

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