What the Media Miss About the Tea Party Movement

realclearpolitics.com ^ | 5/21/14 | John Hart

[cotton1706]

Even before Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blew out Tea-Party-conservative-by-day-cockfight-rally-goer-by-night Matt Bevin, many in the media walked down a tired, well-worn narrative path. An afternoon headline from CNN blared, “How Mitch McConnell crushed the Tea Party” well before the polls had closed. The primary result was a big “win” for the GOP establishment and a “loss” for the Tea Party. For those keeping score, it is now roughly the GOP establishment 5 (Kentucky, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia) and the Tea Party 1 (Nebraska).

But this win-loss story line doesn’t reflect reality. The real struggle in 2014 is not between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party but within the Tea Party itself. And, more importantly, in spite of this struggle, the Tea Party continues to ascend.

Primary campaigns in states like Kentucky are merely bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions within the conservative movement. On one side is the grassroots -- the Tea Party. Alongside it is crabgrass -- the Tea Party establishment’s sometimes invasive tactics, bad judgment (i.e. the government shutdown) and even worse candidate vetting that draw nutrients away from the grassroots.

And what is the Tea Party establishment exactly? Like with the Republican Revolution of 1994, it’s the part of the reform movement that went native after acquiring real political power. Today, it’s the gilded conservative neighborhood of “This Town,” Mark Leibovich’s book about D.C.’s culture of self-love. It’s the catered lunch that never adjourns; the cabal, the mutual-admiration society of master strategists who have never successfully limited government but know how.

In primary campaigns, it’s the part of the Tea Party that has the hubris to suggest candidates like Bevin are representative of an organic uprising because it says so, regardless of what the real grassroots may think.

[Servant of the Cross]

Each election, the TEA party gets a few more candidates to Washington.

Exactly. It is what it is. A long hard slog. But the party is being pushed right. And if we can add Sasse, Cotton, Gardner, McDaniel, Ernst, Land, Shannon, Rounds, Carr ... you have the makings of a revolution.

After all, Ted Cruz was able to cobble together 19 GOP senators last year to vote against funding 0bamacare. If he gets it to 26, he has a majority of the new (hopefully) majority.

[TheThirdRuffian]

How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?

[Renkluaf]

The Republican establishment may think they’ve vanquished the Tea Party but the Tea Party can stay home in November. Who were all the “missing” voters in 2012? Tea Partiers simply view the establishment as Democrat-light.

[Lazamataz]

Stow that s***, Hudson.