GOP Dream derailed by Tea Party?

[Cerek]

With polls showing significant GOP momentum this fall, Republicans in recent weeks began to believe they had a real chance of retaking control of the Senate in November. But a major primary upset at the hands of a tea party insurgent on Tuesday may have put the Senate GOP's dreams of a majority at serious risk.

In the biggest electoral surprise of the night, conservative activist Christine O'Donnell defeated longtime GOP Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware's Republican Senate primary. Castle, a moderate who once served as the state's governor, had been so favored to win in November that his decision to run had reportedly influenced Democrat Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden, to abandon plans to seek his father's old seat.

But with O'Donnell's come-from-nowhere win Tuesday night, top Republicans in Washington now see virtually no chance the GOP will be able to pick up the Delaware seat this fall. As a result, they admit their already slim chance of winning back Republican control of the Senate is likely dead.

"It's hard to see a path for us," one senior Republican official, who declined to be named while discussing party strategy, told The Upshot. "Never say never, but it has become much harder for us after tonight."

According to Public Policy Polling, just 31 percent of Delaware voters believe O'Donnell is "fit" to hold office. She trails Democrat opponent Chris Coons by 26 points, according to the latest PPP survey. On Tuesday night, the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a tepid statement of congratulations to O'Donnell, but a GOP official told Fox News the party has no plans of putting money into the race.

Still, O'Donnell's surprise victory was significant win for the Tea Party Express, which spent $250,000 at the last minute to boost O'Donnell's campaign. Since the first primaries in early spring, she's the eighth tea party-endorsed candidate to defeat an establishment-backed GOP contender in an election cycle that has been dominated by voters choosing change over experience. Two weeks ago, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her primary race to Joe Miller, who was backed by Palin and the Tea Party. Other surprise tea party wins among Senate candidates this year include Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky. In Florida, Marco Rubio was also endorsed by tea party activists, although he's tried to move toward the middle since winning the primary last month.

The difference between O'Donnell and other tea party-backed Senate candidates is she's running in a state that traditionally elects moderates. O'Donnell, a perennial candidate who once argued against masturbation on a MTV special, is not likely to move toward the middle, as Rubio has, and she doesn't look to benefit from the same anti-incumbent wave that's driven Angle's poll numbers against Harry Reid in Nevada. That's the key reason why national Republicans are so loathe to embrace O'Donnell's candidacy. Not that she cares.

"They have a losing track record," O'Donnell told CNN Tuesday night. "If they're too lazy to put in the effort that we need to win, then so be it."

Source: The Upshot

It seems ironic that influence from the Tea Party is apparently hurting the GOP and helping the Dems. I also find it interesting that the Republican Party is flat-out refusing to give O'Donnell any form of support or funding. Maybe her chances of winning the election are slim to none...then again, so were her chances of winning the primary. Seems like giving her support could only help the GOP and possibly lead to another upset victory.

But if the GOP wants to cut it's nose off to spite it's face, I'm sure the Dems won't mind.

[SpiritWarrior]

The worst-kept secret is that the Tea Party has been doing this since it emerged from the rafters. They put a gruesome face on the most extreme, right-wing policies and ideas (I hesitate to call anything coming out of there an "idea"!) and through media exposure, they kinda blurred the lines between moderate and conservative republicans. Basically, people now equate the GOP with the Tea Party, and assume whatever the Tea Party says or does, reflects the views of the GOP. They are one, and of course the Dems are happy about it because they know that mainstream America is not extreme right-wing. The irony is, Fox News opened that can of worms as a ploy but now they aren't sure how to put them back.

[John D Harris]

Don't believe everything you read Cerek, The RNSC DID give her the Money, the same amount as they have given to all other Republican Senate Candidates. As for the rest of the predictions, well I wouldn't hold my breath. The Tea Party is attacking all the establishment Candidates of both parties. But, we'll find out on the first tuesday after the first monday in November.

The Tea party got it's start from CNBC, not a Fox news. But facts can be a hard thing to swallow especialy when reason is overriden by blind hatered.

[SpiritWarrior]

NBC didn't promote the tea party circus.

[John D Harris]

Called for on 9 Feb, 2009 by Rick Santelli of CNBC.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29283225/Angr...cago_Tea_Party

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=89384

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...tea_party.html

Facts are indeed a hard thing to swallow, it was CNBC first. Fox isn't mentioned until 8 April, 2009 two months after CNBC.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_184805.html

Not holding my breath for a man-up.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally Posted by John D Harris Facts are indeed a hard thing to swallow, it was CNBC first. Fox isn't mentioned until 8 April, 2009 two months after CNBC.

Ok, so who cares? Let's look at how it stands now. From your Huffington Post article:

Fox's Tea Party cheerleading stands in stark contrast to the studied silence observed by CNBC, whose own Rick Santelli got this whole movement started. Since Santelli's impromptu rant blasting government spending on bank bailouts and mortgage relief, he and his network have kept their distance.

[Timber Loftis]

The Backlash Myth
By DAVID BROOKS
Many of my liberal friends are convinced that the Republican Party has a death wish. It is sprinting to the right-most fever swamps of American life. It will end up alienating the moderate voters it needs to win elections.

There’s only one problem with this theory. There is no evidence to support it. The Republican Party may be moving sharply right, but there is no data to suggest that this has hurt its electoral prospects, at least this year.

I asked the election guru Charlie Cook if there were signs that the Tea Party was scaring away the independents. “I haven’t seen any,” he replied. I asked another Hall of Fame pollster, Peter Hart, if there were Republican or independent voters so alarmed by the Tea Party that they might alter their votes. He ran the numbers and found very few potential defectors.

The fact is, as the Tea Party has surged, so has the G.O.P. When this primary season began in early February, voters wanted Democrats to retain control of Congress by 49 percent to 37 percent, according to an Associated Press-Gfk poll. In the ensuing months, Tea Party candidates won shocking victories in states from Florida to Alaska. The most recent A.P./Gfk poll now suggests that Americans want Republicans to take over Congress by 46 percent to 43 percent.

Nor is there evidence that the Tea Party’s success has changed moderates’ perceptions about Republicans generally. According to a survey published in July by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Americans feel philosophically closer to the Republicans than to the Democrats. Put another way, many moderates see Democrats like Nancy Pelosi as more extreme than Republicans like John Boehner.

Nor is there any sign that alarm over the Tea Party is hurting individual Republican candidates. In Ohio, Republican Rob Portman has opened up a significant lead on his Democratic opponent. In Kentucky, Republican Rand Paul is way ahead, as is Marco Rubio in Florida. In Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk has a small lead, and Linda McMahon has pulled nearly even in Connecticut. Sharron Angle, a weak candidate, is basically tied with Harry Reid in Nevada.

This does not mean that moderate voters are signing up for the Glenn Beck-Sarah Palin brigades. Palin has a dismal 29 percent approval rating, according to a June Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. But it does mean that the essential dynamic of this election is still the essential dynamic. Voters are upset about the economy, the debt and the culture of Washington. The Democrats are the party of government and of the status quo. They have done their best to remind people of that. This week, Democratic voters renominated Charles Rangel, the epitome of Washington scandal. Democratic voters in the District of Columbia ousted Mayor Adrian Fenty, one of the nation’s bravest education reformers, and replaced him with an orthodox pol.

Most voters want a radical change in government but not a radical change in policy. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll released this week, only 34 percent of Americans say their own representative deserves re-election. This is an astounding number.

It doesn’t matter that public approval of the G.O.P. is now at its all-time low. It doesn’t matter that the Tea Party rhetoric is sometimes extreme. The poll suggests that roughly 50 percent of Americans haven’t thought about the Tea Parties enough to form an opinion. They’re not paying attention because they don’t see it as one of the important dangers they face. Who knows? Maybe they even sort of like the fact that a ragtag band of outsiders is taking on the establishment and winning.

This doesn’t mean that the Tea Party influence will be positive for Republicans over the long haul. The movement carries viruses that may infect the G.O.P. in the years ahead. Its members seek traditional, conservative ends, but they use radical means. Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture: a narcissistic sense of victimization, an egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity, a willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil.

The Tea Party style is beginning to replicate itself in parts of the conservative world. Dinesh D’Souza’s Forbes cover article, “How Obama Thinks,” contained the sort of untethered assertions that have become the lingua franca of this movement. Obama got his subversive radicalism from his father’s grave, D’Souza postulated: “He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and freedom are code words for economic plunder.” The fact that Newt Gingrich embraced this offensive theory is a sign of how severely the normal intellectual standards have been weakened.

But that damage is all in the future. Right now, the Tea Party doesn’t matter. The Republicans don’t matter. The economy and the Democrats are handing the G.O.P. a great, unearned revival. Nothing, it seems, is more scary than one-party Democratic control.

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally Posted by John D Harris Called for on 9 Feb, 2009 by Rick Santelli of CNBC. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement http://www.cnbc.com/id/29283225/Angr...cago_Tea_Party http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=89384 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...tea_party.html Facts are indeed a hard thing to swallow, it was CNBC first. Fox isn't mentioned until 8 April, 2009 two months after CNBC. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_184805.html Not holding my breath for a man-up.

No, just you holding your breath it seems. Most of these articles are about Rick Santeli, with the one Wiki article bearing the truth, and the Huffington article confirming what I said.

And what I said was this:

NBC didn't promote the tea party circus.

Show me NBC promoting the tea party. Otherwise, your own links just ate you.

[SpiritWarrior]

Btw, just to save us time where you demand proof of something that's in your own link...From the Wiki link you posted:

US News and World Report reported that the nature of the coverage of the protests has become part of the story.[113] On CNN's Situation Room, journalist Howard Kurtz commented that "much of the media seems to have chosen sides." He says that Fox News portrayed the protests "as a big story, CNN as a modest story, and MSNBC as a great story to make fun of. And for most major newspapers, it's a nonstory."[113] There are reports that the movement has been actively promoted by the Fox News Channel, indicating a possible media bias.[114][115] Tea Party protesters walk towards the United States Capitol during the Taxpayer March on Washington, September 12, 2009.In April 2010, responding to a question from the media watchdog group Media Matters posed the previous week, Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corporation which owns Fox News, said, “I don’t think we should be supporting the Tea Party or any other party.” That same week Fox News canceled an appearance by Sean Hannity at a Cincinnati Tea Party rally.[116] Following the September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington, Fox News claimed it was the only cable news outlet to cover the emerging protests and took out full-page ads in The Washington Post, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal with a prominent headline reading, "How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?"[117] CNN news anchor Rick Sanchez disputed Fox's claim pointing to various coverage of the event.[118][119][120] CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CBS Radio News provided various forms of live coverage of the rally in Washington throughout the day on Saturday, including the lead story on CBS Evening News.[118][120][121][122]

And then of course, you recall I posted this pic in another thread awhile back don't you? Where are the NBC/CBS/ABC anchors hosting rallies?

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior No, just you holding your breath it seems. Most of these articles are about Rick Santeli, with the one Wiki article bearing the truth, and the Huffington article confirming what I said. And what I said was this: Originally Posted by It NBC didn't promote the tea party circus. Show me NBC promoting the tea party. Otherwise, your own links just ate you.

It has gotten you beat with smoking mirrors there JD. You see, it used words that could not be accounted for by a legitimate author, and therefore we all know that Rick Santelli of CNBC got the movement started, does not type the same as a circus clown on crack. If you let it gloat for a moment, it will go away...but like any virus, it will return...even after it has been crushed, it returns for more...