There is no doubt the TP put up many not ready for prime time candidates... and it cost the republicans seats in 2012.
Now the republicans are handling them easily, which should have always been the case. When a not ready for prime time candidate shows up against an experienced one, the not ready for prime time should be taken out in the primaries.
The question here is how and why the republicans are now handling the 2nd and 3rd tier TP candidates so handily? If the low calibre, not ready for prime time TP candidates are being handled easily because the Republican Part has moved right politically to head them off, that’s a good thing because that means the Republican party will move back to conservative beliefs.
If however they are knocking of the TP candidates handily due to nefarious means then that’s not a good sign.
In general, TP will have to up its game and recruit better candidates to stay relevant, and the Republicans will have to move more to the right to counter them. This is a good thing long term but it won’t happen overnight. If the TP doesn’t up its game and recruit better candidates they will just become irrelevant and the Republicans will start sliding left again.
It will be interesting to see what the TP does next cycle.
>> If the TP doesn’t up its game and recruit better candidates they will just become irrelevant and the Republicans will start sliding left again. <<
Your analysis is basically spot on.
The trouble as I see it, however, is this:
A concrete entity called “the TP” doesn’t really exist. What virtually everybody calls the “Tea Party” is actually a vague agglomeration that consists mainly of (a) sincere grassroots conservative voters; (b) DC-based fund raisers, some of whom are probably no more than scam artists; and (c) political amateurs at the local level, many of whom yearn prematurely for national attention before they’ve earned their spurs in retail politics.
Therefore IMHO, it’s probably something of a pipe dream to suppose that such an agglomeration — no matter how sincere and dedicated its grassroots supporters may be — can ever truly “up its game and recruit better candidates.”