Tea Party Challenger Fails in Kansas (Kansas!)

Vanity ^ | August 6, 2014 | Nathan Bedford

[nathanbedford]

The news that just came across my screen on Fox that incumbent Senator Pat Roberts has prevailed in his primary for reelection to the Senate from Kansas (or in his case from Arlington, Virginia) is heartbreaking.

The implications are dispiriting. His victory implies that in the American heartland the Republican Party cannot reform itself when confronted with an egregious example of elitism. If the Republican Party in Kansas (Kansas!) cannot reform itself there, how can it expect to prevail in purple states? How can we expect to carry a message to Reagan Democrats and Independents if The Tea Party cannot even convince Kansas farmers that their absentee senator of 36 years no longer remotely represents their interests in Washington?

If The Tea Party in Kansas cannot penetrate the consciousness of staunch conservatives where can it prevail? If the apparatus of the Republican machine in Kansas can prevail with a flat-out Rino whose very connection to the state is so patently fraudulent over a genuine grassroots conservative, a physician, how can the GOP establishment be reformed anywhere?

Before I give in to despair I will await the postmortems which will no doubt tell me that Pat Roberts flooded the zone with money, beat us on the airwaves, that our candidate was somehow flawed, that the challengers simply did not have the infrastructure and the ground game etc.

But I fear that even in these parlous times of malaise at home and failure everywhere abroad, the ideal constituency of The Tea Party was indifferent to the current state of affairs or was somehow behind the power curve and utterly ignorant of the facts of Pat Roberts residence and voting record. Somehow, the message in this case cannot be said to have been wrong, at best we can hope that the cause was a failure of execution. I doubt such a best case but I await the details.

Finally, this defeat for reform is alas not an isolated setback. We have seen that the Republican establishment apparatus is so powerful in Mississippi that it can set aside a decisive Tea Party victory in a primary by hijacking the runoff. We have seen what has happened in South Carolina, Kentucky and what will happen in Tennessee. I hope we get enough data out of these primaries to tell us what went wrong. With luck we will find that we simply do not have the infrastructure to prevail in an election on a statewide basis because a reform movement cannot hope to prevail once every six years with a top-down effort against a well entrenched, fully financed Republican establishment. No matter what the data tells me, however, I am discouraged by the tone deafness of Republicans everywhere.

[BillyBoy]

>> I think your count is somewhat off. Is it “staunch(ly) conservative” to vote for maintaining MFN status with Red China, and to normalize trade with Vietnam? How about the statist move of countenancing “fast track” presidential trade authority? How about the extension of the “roving” warrantless wiretaps that the NSA was fond of abusing (a 2011 vote)? How about his pro-subsidy stance on agriculture? Never mind voting yes to confirm John Roberts? Furthermore, there is his liberal stances with respect to Iraq during the war, much of which have been debunked by ISIS/ISIL. <<

No, my count is correct. Roberts cast hundreds of votes each year. 90% of them are conservative, and you can check his ratings from various issue groups across the board to confirm that. 10% of his votes are not conservative, so he is going to vote the "wrong" way on dozens of bills each year. Compared to Republican Senators as a whole, he has one of the most conservative voting records and is far more conservative than the average Senator. Most conservatives in America are stuck with much worst Senators and would kill for a Senator like Roberts.

Obviously, his voting record is not perfect and there are numerous votes he has cast that I do not agree with. If you want perfect, run Jesus Christ for the Senate. In the meanwhile, I will take Roberts proven 90% conservative record over a guy whose only claim to fame is that he's distantly related to the marxist-in-chief.

[BillyBoy]

>> Your words mock reality. <<

And your post proves my point that numerous misguided "conservatives" attack conservative Senators but defend liberal Senators.

Elsewhere on this thread, we have freepers demanding Roberts head on a platter and calling him a RINO when he is one of the most reliably conservative members of the Senate and one of the few we can can count on to stand with Ted Cruz.

Meanwhile, we have Mark Kirk in the Senate, a man who publicly gloated about the fact he rated TO THE LEFT OF OBAMA by the Sierra Club, and who is more liberal than Lisa Madigan on abortion and gloats about his 100% Planned Parenthood rating and is so liberal on banning guns that Sarah Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence endorsed him OVER a marxist Chicago machine Democrat. That's reality, and you are defending him and mocking reality.

Too many conservatives have their priorities backwards. The goal should be to defeat liberal Republicans and help conservative Republicans. Many useful idiots on "our side" seem to want to defeat conservative Republicans and help liberal Republicans.

[BillyBoy]

>> Agree. RINO is a term that is being thrown around like the Race Card. If someone says they are Tea Party it is automatically assumed they are, even if there is no evidence to verify the fact. Roberts has been determined to be the 8th most conservative member of the Senate and stood with Cruz. In Kansas we have had our share of outright RINO's but Roberts isn't one. <<

I've noticed "RINO" seems to be used on the right the way "racist" is thrown around on the left.

According to some deranged leftists, you are a "racist" if you oppose a Democrat who happens to be black, regardless of how many other minorities you have strongly supported over the years, and even if you're helping a black or hispanic candidate running against a white incumbent.

According to some misguided people on the right, you are a "RINO" if you are not the anointed Tea Party candidate in the race, regardless of how much you've supported Ted Cruz and how conservative your record has proven to be over the years, and even if the self-proclaimed "Tea Party" candidate is to your left on the issues.

[Nextrush]

95 PERCENT OF ELECTED REPUBLICANS ARE NOT REAL CONSERVATIVES.....

They won’t balance the budget and or cut the size of government, they want to repeal and replace Obamacare, not end it because special interests wanted it to begin with since they got an early version in Massachusetts with Mitt Romney.

[LS]

I know Milton. He’s a partner in one of my companies, but he had zero name recognition and Roberts had a very good voting record. To whine about being able to “reform itself” is nonsense in this case. If Roberts was more liberal, or if Milton had a track record or was better known, then the article might have some credibility. Even Milton thought it was a long shot.

[nathanbedford]

1. Pat Roberts was 78 years old and will be 84 or 85 when his term expires. As such he is not able to drive hard against the left-wing deconstruction of our liberties. Pat Roberts is not the man for this season.

2. Pat Roberts is not set foot in Kansas except to campaign since Dorothy went skipping down the yellow brick road. He declined to debate the Challenger.

3. Milton Wolf was an able candidate, with impeccable conservative credentials, a physician, quite articulate on TV albeit with relatively minor personal peccadillo in his background who campaigned on reforming Washington where Pat Roberts has presided over and too often participated in the disintegration of our liberties and our Republic.

4. The setback in Kansas is not isolated but part of a pattern across the country in which we see establishment Republicans prevailing over Tea Party reformers.

5. The loss was not close, seven or eight points.

It is the inability of reformers overall to energize even conservative electorates in Kansas and elsewhere at a time of real peril to the nation and to our liberties that is dispiriting. Even if we search out ways to rationalize this result, the same article could have been written about Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, Lamar Alexander in Tennessee, Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. The inertia is discouraging because it is nearly ubiquitous.

[Biggirl]

Revolt is coming!

[Old Yeller]

One good thing about Kansas is that we have to show our ID to vote.

[foreverfree]

bump

[Dan in Wichita]

I voted for Wolf, but I am not disappointed Roberts won. He will continue to vote with conservatives almost all of the time. Roberts does not fit the definition of a RINO. It is time to look forward to November.

[Resettozero]

Thank you. FReepers usually say similar things about South Carolinians. Nice to see it spread around.

[nathanbedford]

Stop giving in to despair. It’s silly and a waste of energy.

May I solicit your position on the Article V movement?

[MaggiesPitchfork]

DC is full-blown cancer, and we waited too long to try to stop it. What we need to do now is render the feds powerless - that can only be done through the states. That’s where the tea party needs to focus their resources.

[Jagdgewehr]

Bump

[Diogenesis]

Simply put, Romney won.

Conservatives will be marginalized by him and Marriott
again (like Mr. Cain and the Speaker) and will
be endlessly attacked by his surrogates (like the
Palin children).

The GOP is scum, and supports Obama and ObamaCARE
and all things Soros.

Do not falsely claim that no one was warned.
This is the fourth election cycle ruined by the RomneyBOTs.

[Steamburg]

Pick up and work to apply pressure to what “representation” we have. The Tea Party looses much of it’s appeal when it tries to emulate a political party. The Tea Party as an idea, a concept, a collection of precepts and expectations. As a king maker is where it shines. When you cloak ideas into political party cloth, you pick up the fleas and parasites. In turn making the party a target that can be isolated and attacked rather than something that draws open support.
The left didn’t build their Baracka Machine in a couple of elections, it took generations of infiltration and brainwashing. Look at the tarnish that it has accumulated in 6 years.

[LS]

As I say, an "able" candidate who has not gone through major campaigns that expose weaknesses, dirt, ANYTHING that might damage a campaign is asking for trouble.

This is precisely the kind of head-in-the-sand problem that so many Tea Party candidates have: campaigns vet candidates. Say what you want about Hillary, virtually everything that could be thrown at her has already been thrown.

It is unnecessary to remind me of Roberts' weaknesses. But those weaknesses were a "devil we know" kind of thing compared to an unknown. To continue to restate the virtues of people such as Milton while ignoring the practical, very important weaknesses of inexperienced outsiders running will continue to produce the same results.

The classic example of this was Alan Keyes. Keyes is a brilliant man, extremely articulate. But he carefully never ran for a seat he could actually win---a House seat, for example. He ran as a very conservative candidate for the senate in Maryland, then had a joke of a campaign for the senate in Illinois. Not a STATE senate position in either case, but the US senate. Such candidates are not serious. I think Milton was more serious, but lack of name recognition combined with the "un-vetted-ness" that allows the last-minute dirt campaign of the opponent is a sure loser. Cantor is not a good example here because that was a US House seat in a vastly smaller territory where name recognition could be overcome quickly. And, as I said, Roberts didn't have a bad ACA rating, despite his age and despite his inability to "drive hard." Being able to simply post "Here's how I voted" and have people look at it and say, "Well, that's a pretty good record" is very hard to overcome.

So, I'm not surprised at all, and don't think it has anything to do with being "unable to reform." It has to do with political realities that too many Tea Party types ignore (see Christine O'Donnell).

[1010RD]

Here’s reality using Heritage’s numbers:

http://www.heritageactionscorecard.com//state/state?state=IL&search=

The top performer in IL is Hultgren at 74%. Roskam is number 2 at 52%, a significant drop. Kirk is the rump of the GOP at 38% (7/7). But take a look at the most conservative Democrat, Lipinski, who is at 15%.

So Kirk is 2.5 times better than the best Democrat. Durbin our other Senator comes in at 2%. So Kirk is 19 times better than the alternative.

That’s reality. Illinois, dominated by radical Chicago, is a blue, blue state. The average GOP score is 49%. So in Illinois I’ll take anybody at Kirk or better. The alternative is worse. Staying home just puts another Durbin in place.

I’ve never attacked Roberts and have had a lot of doubts about Wolf whose campaign seemed centered around being better than his cousin Obama. Roberts is rated equal to Cruz, but FReepers don’t like Roberts. Whatever.

What’s my preference? I’d love two Mike Lees and an entire delegation of Trent Franks. That’s not reality for Illinois. Can we do better?

I’d love two Ron Johnsons here in Illinois, but I don’t think that’s possible. Will I support a Johnson over a Kirk, yes, but he better be able to win in the general.

[1010RD]

A potential cure worse than the current poison.

[mac_truck]

You sure have some problems if you are equating anti-Israel UKIP (an actual political party) with the grass-roots Tea Party of the USA

There's nothing inherently 'anti-Israel' in the UKIP document you provided.

16.4 UKIP fully supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and recognises the despicable anti-Semitism in European history, culminating in the Holocaust. Israel is surrounded by hostile states committed to its destruction. The tiny state has been the frequent victim of rocket attacks and suicide bombings from terrorist groups, almost all deliberately targeting civilians. Israel has every right to respond with proportionate force to these attacks, and a UKIP government would do the same were Britain similarly threatened. UKIP rejects the notion that Israel should be punished through sanctions or cancellation of trade deals (such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement) for defending itself from attack.