Look at the primaries in Mississippi where the establishment used their influence over the courts and the party to ensure Cochran was the candidate. Kansas and Kentucky and other states where they defeated the Tea Party candidate by setting out to destroy their professional reputations. South Carolina and Tennessee and states where the establishment incumbent has mocked and belittled the Tea Party and their ideals. Look at all that and then let me ask you this; what lesson is the GOPe supposed to take away from this election? If they can pull every string and use every dirty trick in the book to hold on to thier seats, and still have people like you saying we still need to vote for them blindly and unquestioningly because two years of Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader is better than two years of Harry Reid then what hope to we have of ever changing anything? What chance is there of ever having a Republican Party where men like Ted Cruz are the norm with in the party and not the pariah? What reason is there for the Tea Party or any other Conservative movement within the party to exist? If at the end of the day the establishment can brush any dissent conpemptuously aside and not pay a price for it then what is the purpose of trying to change anything? Can you answer that for me please?
You may have an argument for Mississippi; the rest of the states you mentioned sound to me like hard fought politics as usual.
Expecting incumbent office holders to roll over for challengers is foolish. They won’t do it, and should not be expected to do so.
The Republican party leadership has, in many ways, lost its way. We can agree on that fact.
The same thing could be said for that entity in the 1970s...and Ronald Reagan didn’t walk away from the party. He worked to change it, and it wasn’t easy. But he didn’t just walk out. I suggest we who consider ourselves conservative follow his example.
By the way, it seems as though Reagan was the “pariah” with the establishment, even after he won the Presidency. He just kept going.
My point is that these intraparty political battles will never, EVAH end. Ever. The same thing was happening in the DemonRat party of the 1980s. The Star Wars bar scene that is the DemonRat constituency had massive battles over ideology and what was considered “best” for the advancement of the organization.
The point is there are TWO and only TWO electable national parties. DemonRat and Republican. The former is lost, if not forever, for at least a generation or two. The latter is still salvageable, in my opinion.
Tilt at windmills like Don Quixote if you like; I’d rather do what Reagan did and work within the party that is the electable, most conservative one of the two.
I’ve done my best to answer your question in the time I have.