It’s time, they say, for Washington bosses to be more assertive about recruiting and then defending promising candidates. They argue that it’s critical to start enlisting local conservative activists as allies and to ease the tea party versus Washington dynamic that’s wreaked havoc on the party.
All easier said than done, of course. Tea party types have relished showing the chosen candidates of the Washington establishment a thing or two — and it’s hard to see them laying down arms overnight. But after a sure-bet election in 2012 turned into an electoral disaster, Republicans say resolving their primary problem is, well, their primary problem.
Now, top Republicans are considering splitting the difference between the heavy hand they wielded in 2010 that prompted sharp blowback from the right and their mostly hands-off approach of 2012. Both strategies produced a handful of unelectable candidates, so senators are gravitating toward a middle ground: engage in primaries so long as they can get some cover on the local level.
Very often the tea party people were nothing more than the values crowd in a different costume. They were the same beaten up old crew coming in with a financial message that actually quickly got lost once the candidate found his or her footing. Then they began to sound like Akin and Mourdock and other far right extremists who helped the GOP get trounced on election day.
What I find amazing is that the GOP didn’t see it coming. I was careful what I said because I am superstitious. I never like to shoot off my mouth for fear of jinxing myself. But the roar of the Obama machine could be heard above the silly polls that said nothing.
In this day and age many people just don’t have land lines and cell phone users are very under respresnted. Ask youself how many political calls you got on your cell phone vs. how many you got on your landline. My own personal ratio was about 300:1.
GOP types also didn’t see it coming because their news sources failed to warn them. If you listen long enough, you start believing that everyone thinks like you do. That’s a dangerous spot to be in.
At any rate, the GOP governors met in Vegas to solve their problems. One item at the top of the list was making certain that the candidates selected represented what the people of the state wanted:
“We ought to make certain that if we get engaged in primaries that we’re doing it based on the desires, the electability and the input of people back in the states that we’re talking about,” Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, the incoming National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, told POLITICO. “And not from the perception of what political operatives from Washington, D.C., think about who ought to be the candidate in state X.”
The GOP needs to screen out extremists if they want to win elections. Look what the General Assembly did to Gov. McDonnell. National and state elections aren’t really about the base. They are about electability.
Tea Party? What Tea Party?
Yep! The GOP needs to weed out those extremists like Mitt Romney and John McCain! Horrible, extremist, right wing, partisan, ideologues!
Cargo, why would you say something …pardon me…stupid like that? You obviously know that isn’t who I am talking about. McCain did himself no favors bringing Palin on the ticket. But obviously I wasn’t speaking of him. He is turning into quite the jerk lately though.
@Moon-howler
Because, according to the press, they WERE those things. I probably need a sarcasm tag.
Romney and McCain lost, in reality, because they did not get the votes of the base. They were Democrat-lite. However, I don’t blame them. I blame the Republican voters that preferred the chance of an Obama victory over voting for their own party’s candidate for whatever reason they had, knowing what was at stake. So, if they need to weed out extremists to win elections….and the 2010 elections were a sweep for the GOP/Tea Party….and McCain and Romney lost….then those must be the extremists that keep causing us to lose….not the Tea Party.
I think the 2010 elections were an anomoly. People were scared because of the crash. People want instant gratification and the economy wasnt snapping back instantly.
Its rather hard to pin anything on the tea party…which is like a moving target. It also has a lot of the values people masquerading as tea partiers.
The extremists are the people who take folks too far away from the center. You simply don’t have the votes to go with an extremist.
@Cargo, we can always use
as a sarcasm icon. colon nospace mrgreen nospace colon
@Moon-howler
And so we return full circle to one of our original discussions.
Who defines the center? Who is far left or right?
And I can believe that the GOP is trying to kick the Tea Party to the curb because the TP is the GOP’s biggest threat. The TP is trying to upset the status quo of the professional politicians giving only lip service to the GOP platform…like Eric Cantor.