From the Daily Press:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Radtke and roughly 30 of her Tea Party supporters stood outside the Capitol on Wednesday to protest Radtke’s exclusion from a debate featuring former Govs. Tim Kaine and George Allen.
Democrat Kaine and Republican Allen were the only two candidates for the Senate seat being vacated by Jim Webb to meet the qualifications laid out by event organizers, the Associated Press and the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association. To get an invite candidates must have averaged at least 15 percent in published polls and raised at least 20 percent of the amount of money raised by their party’s front runner.
In addition to Radtke, this left out Tim Donner, E.W. Jackson and David McCormick who are running for the GOP nomination, and Julien Modica and Courtney Lynch on the Democratic side.
Radtke consistently complained that limiting the debate to the two big-name former governors was a circumventing of the primary process and an attempt by the “mainstream media” to pick the Republican and Democratic nominees.
I am still trying to figure out if the Tea Party is a political party or not. If not, what are they? Is it just a descriptor? Right now, it seems like the old Republican Party has a push me/pull me relationship with people espousing TP state of mind. On the one hand, the R’s seem to want to use them in their mix and on the other hand, they seem to feel that undo influence and pressure is coming from that wing of the party.
