Posted on 08/08/2014 4:40:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
The standard thing to say about the various Republican primaries this year is that the tea party movement has lost one race after another. That's a defensible conclusion but also an oversimplification.
I see more turbulence and undercurrents among Republican primary voters than usual. The evidence is that incumbents -- both those the mainstream media call tea partyers and those they call the party establishment -- have been prevailing by tenuous margins in primaries that in the pre-tea party years would almost certainly not have been seriously contested.
Take Kansas. There Sen. Pat Roberts was renominated over challenger Dr. Milton Wolf by just a 48 percent to 40 percent margin -- a victory, but an embarrassingly low margin for someone who has been in Congress for 34 years.
Wolf, a second cousin of President Obama, made much of the fact that Roberts maintains only a nominal residence in the state. But the doctor was hurt when it was revealed that he circulated X-rays of wounded patients with macabre comments.
Roberts, perhaps awakened by the near-defeat of fellow septuagenarian and longtime incumbent Thad Cochran in Mississippi, worked hard in affluent Johnson County, just outside Kansas City, which casts one-fifth of the primary vote. He held Wolf to a 107-vote margin there and carried 92 of the other 104 counties.
Also renominated was Gov. Sam Brownback, by 63 percent to 37 percent. Brownback's push for tax cuts has been controversial; critics charge it hasn't stimulated growth and has forced the state to cut needed spending. Some 100 current and past Republicans officials signed a letter supporting his Democratic opponent.
This is the latest chapter in a long-simmering intra-party fight between conservatives and moderates. Brownback prevailed, but by a margin that suggests problems in November.
Kansas also saw serious challenges of incumbents in two of its four congressional districts. In the 1st District, Tim Huelskamp, a frequent rebel against the House Republican leadership, won, but by only 54 percent to 46 percent.
There was a clearer verdict in the Wichita-centered 4th District, where incumbent Mike Pompeo led his predecessor, Tom Tiahrt, by 63 percent to 37 percent.
Tiahrt ran as a champion of earmarks, arguing they were necessary to help Wichita's troubled private plane industry. Pompeo pledged no earmarks, and various conservative groups supported each candidate.
The lesson from these results: Many Republicans are skittish about backbench rebellions that produced the government shutdown and hurt the party in the polls; many more are pleased to see earmarks go, even when they arguably help the local community.
Michigan had significant Republican primaries in six congressional districts. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, who has faced conservative challenges before, won with 71 percent in the 6th District.
In the 4th District, John Molenaar, endorsed by incumbent retiring Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, beat self-funding businessman Paul Mitchell by 52 percent to 36 percent. In the 8th District vacated by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, moderate Mike Bishop beat tea-party-identified Tom McMillin, 60 percent to 40 percent.
You could chalk these up as establishment victories. But don't count business-supported Dave Trott's 66 percent to 34 percent pounding of incumbent reindeer farmer and Santa Claus impersonator Kerry Bentivolio in the 11th District. He was a fluke winner two years ago and didn't put up much of a fight this time. And conservative incumbents in the 1st and 7th districts won with 70 percent of the vote or more.
In the Grand Rapids 3rd District, local and national business groups spent big money on challenger Brian Ellis. But he failed to oust incumbent Justin Amash, who makes a practice of tweeting his reasons for his votes, often against the party leadership, on every roll call.
On foreign policy, Amash takes a stand much like Sen. Rand Paul's, and he recently voted against funding Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. He won by 57 percent to 43 percent, a decisive margin but no landslide for an incumbent in a primary -- and he characteristically refused to take his opponent's congratulatory phone call.
Republican primary turnout continues to be more robust than Democratic turnout, a good omen for the party in November. And Republican primary voters seem reluctant to vote for firebrands who lose general elections or provoke government shutdowns.
But they are also more open to questioning incumbents. It's as if they are seeking a way forward to policies with voter appeal, with no clear idea of how to get there.
So lets continue with the spineless feckless go along to get along rhino rats, yeah that seems to be working out well for us isnt it? We can always count on silence when there needs to be screaming
The establishment fossils will die. The TEA Party conservatives have gained valuable experience in running for office. They should be prepared to win.
Time to get off the fence.
Doesn’t matter, the Senate is a bunch of panzies anyway (with a few Cruz-like exceptions, of course). The important thing is that we won the BIG PRIZE, which was Cantor’s (political) head. That more than makes up for all these losses - if, for not other reason, Amnesty would be LAW by now if Cantor had won.
If voters have a healthy skepticism of both “TEA Party” and “Establishment” candidates, I see that as a good thing. It’ll force the voters to take a real hard look at their candidates and judge them on individual merits (or lack thereof) and not generic labels.
I wonder if the reason Pat Roberts won in Kansas was because the Tea Party challenger is a third cousin to that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? Many probably held their noses when they voted for Roberts.
I consider myself tea party. That stated, in many instances, we need better candidates. I am not talking about a change in political philosophy or policy (lower taxes, less government, rule of law, constitutional checks and balances)...what I mean by “better candidate” is an articulate person, like able and not angry...low information people don’t vote for anger. Reagan was a force of nature who changed America for the better...but he did not come across as angry.
To be sure, if you aren’t angry, you should be. But our candidates cannot come across as such.
Agree 100 percent.
Remember Mississippi.
Seems that the Tea Party candidates have been able to overcome, somewhat, the endless barrage of negative,
name-calling propaganda that the MSM has been spewing for years.
(Herr Goebbles might be just a bit disappointed.)
IMHO
Headline should have said “...RINO Voters Wary Of Tea Party...” And when did Mike Barone become the election advisor to Conservatives?
I would absolutely agree. I want to see reasoned calm, not fury.
Barone has to come up with one or more columns a week. Everybody occasionally burns their toast. So Mike burned his today. Don’t know what the details of his column were. He lost me at the headline. Sorry. But I’m about “up to here” with political BS from the scribes.
I am in my early 60s and recently started dating a woman of similar age whom I met online. She is a Republican, and among other things we bond around our mutual hatred of Obama and the Democrats.
When I first met her this past January, and we got to talking, I was very happy that we agreed on so much politically. She’s not a real political news junkie like I am, but she hates the Boston Globe, and likes Howie Carr. (We live in Massachusetts, about five minutes away from each other.)
But get this. When I told her that I was a big Tea Party fan, she said: “I hate the Tea Party. They’re way too extreme.”
Needless to say, I was stunned. But in the six months that we’ve known each other, and as she has come to understand why I’m a Tea Party supporter, her opinion has mellowed, and she admits to having more respect for the kind of conservatism that the Tea Party represents.
My point is that there are a lot of basically conservative people who would seem to be potential Tea Party supporters, but somehow they have gotten such a wrong impression of what it stands for because they are not political junkies and basically get all their news from the MSM.
She gets her news from local TV news, and reads the Boston Herald everyday along with the very local town daily paper. She has a laptop, but doesn’t spend a lot of time with it.
I think there are probably a lot of Tea Party-hating conservatives out there who would get on board with the Tea Party agenda if only there were some effort to reach out to them and get the right message out.
Not sure how to do that, and maybe my experience is just a generational thing, but meeting this lady and hearing her initial reaction to the Tea Party has really opened my eyes.
I think this is one reason why so many Republicans continue to vote for the RINOs.
I agree. There have been plenty of candidates seeking to ride the coattails of the Tea Party who have been poseurs or duds.
Judge a candidate by his/her stands on the issues, not because they say they are aligned with this or that group. If they are elected, hold their feet to the fire or vote them out next time if they don't walk the walk.
The incumbents are winning by embarrassingly small margins, but a win is a win. It doesn’t matter if they win by one vote or millions. So why are the incumbents winning?
#1 I personally think Republican voters in general are moderately satisfied with the incumbents. Mitch McConnell, for example, is despised here, but he actually has a reasonably conservative voting record. It’s not stellar of course, but it’s not nearly so bad—in the eyes of most Republicans—as some here think.
#2 The so-called Tea Party candidates were generally political newcomers. Here that’s considered a big plus, but most Republican voters do not want to elect people who haven’t paid their dues. We don’t put complete amateurs into the Oval Office (or a senator’s job) based on popularity, family name, or media propaganda. We don’t run elections like beauty pageants. We aren’t Democrats.
#3 Incumbents generally know how to win and have the resources necessary to wage winning campaigns. They have money, connections, and name recognition. If name recognition alone gives them a few percentage points, that’s enough to win a lot of elections.
That’s my two cents for what it’s worth.
Blame the state Republican Parties who refuse to fix the problem of “open” primaries, where Democrats are authorized to join in with the Repubs (and they do) to vote for the most “liberal” Republican on the ballot. Yes the Repubs are so fair and square they let their arch enemy arrange things for them. Just like the Rats voting in the “primaries” were the ones who chose Mitt Romney for US in 2012. What a bunch of self-hating suicidal morons.
Democrats and the DBM have had great success denigrating the Tea Party.
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