Tea Party Candidates Shown the Door

O'Donnell. Angle. Paladino. Perhaps Miller and Buck.

In their excitement to make a statement, the Tea Party foisted candidates on the public that were very hard to take seriously, and the public did not and sent them packing.

If the Tea Party wants to be taken seriously and to have a future, it must offer serious candidates that can stand the heat of a nationally significant campaign. Candidates will not be able to simply try to hide from the national media and avoid inconvenient questions. If they are ever to offer a candidate for the White House, the national media will be unavoidable, and so will questions that will demand cogent answers. The above listed candidates all used avoidance as a strategy to maintain their credibility. If they were serious and prepared candidates, they would not have to avoid the press. The press is only the enemy when you don't have the goods to engage them.

The buzz will subside, and the need to govern will emerge. I don't think the Tea Party has any idea what is required for that task, and their choices for candidates are the evidence of that. One candidate suggested a second amendment solution, and another offered to use his big orange bat on those that disagree with him. If this is to be the Tea Party modus operandi, they will quickly go the way of the John Birch Society, a mere footnote in American History.

The childlike enthusiasm was amusing. Now it's time for big boy pants. The public wasn't buying the bully act.

 

Overall 27 Tea Party Candidates won. How many Democrats lost in the House again, I forgot?

 

OP clearly cant count..lol

 

Didn't the Tea Party win a bunch of elections?

What kind of hamstrung thread is this?

How about, Democrat candidates got shown the door for a more accurate thread title?

 

In th senate are Rubio and Paul the only sure teaprty wins?

 

Perhaps these people had more personal issues than TEA party issues?
But whatever. Noteworthy, and not to be forgotten in all this, is the shift of minority candidates to the GOP.
Allen West in FL, among others... one of the TEA Party favorites btw..., just tickles me pink. What a fine man he is.

 

Both of them terrify leftist elites....even more than that cute little gal from Alaska.

 

There were a whole lot more Democrats shown the door than Tea Party Candidates.

Sorry to see Boucher go, he voted against Obama Care twice.

 

Rubios a career politician.....my guess is hes a standard (but smart and saavy) republican who knew what to say this election cycle.

Paul scares the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of everybody not on the far right.....if GOP leadership cant at least contain him it could be big trouble for everyone.

 

87% of TEA Party backed candidates won...I doubt they are complaining.

 

LOL.

So 13% got shown the door. And this is a negative?

I wonder what the Democrat percentages were.

 

I take it we are just talking general election?

and do you have a source for that?

 

with mike castle in DE and Sue Lowden in NV....GOP could have had the senate

 

I am sorry - 27 won and 57 lost - how does that show the POWER of the Teaparty Side?

I can only hope they continue to attract all the nutcases, wackos, leeches and flakes they can for the candidates they run in elections.

I hope they continue to make the Republicans look sane, and suck all the votes for them that they can.

Can't wait for the 27 who made it in, to have a year or two of video clips showing them with their heads up their ass making all kinds of crazy ass statements.

I was in a corporate heath care seminar for a company I work for last night, and everyone was surprised that they could now add their kids up to 26 years old. They were really happy when they were told that if they have a life threatening disease, their policy won't get canceled like it did in the past.

My fellow employees are hardcore Republicans who were against Obamacare, but after the seminar, they were all against the idea of repealing healthcare.

I can't wait for bonehead Boehner to launch his repeal push in the next year.

No, 2012 is looking like it will be a good year for Dems.

 

Source for the 57 that lost?

 

Not really, Castle voted with the Democrats most of the time, so what's the point.

 

Over his 17 complete years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Castle has voted the conservative position, as defined by the American Conservative Union, about 52 percent of the time. In 2009, ACU scored Castle at 56. So how did he get that rating from the group last year?

Castle opposed the Lilly Ledbetter pay act, which the ACU described as a “new Pandora’s Box for trial lawyers.” He voted for a January 2009 bill that would prevent the Treasury from spending the $350 billion that remained in the TARP program. He opposed the Obama stimulus. He voted against efforts to water down legislation barring federal funds to ACORN or other organizations that employ people who have been convicted of election-law violations. He voted to eliminate the earmark for the airport near Johnstown, Pa., named after Rep. John Murtha. He voted to cut discretionary government spending in the appropriations for the Departments of Housing and Transportation by 5 percent.

He supported an amendment to the health-care bill that would ban using taxpayer funds to provide abortion services, an interesting vote for a self-described pro-choice Republican. He voted against the health-care bill.

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/245790/just-what-mike-castles-voting-record

 

Yeah, it's hard to argue that last night was a big win for the Tea Party. They helped Republicans by generating big voter turnout. But most of their highest-profile candidates got trounced, and they cost the GOP the Senate and several governorships. And many of the races they *did* win, the GOP would have won with or without the Tea Party.

One other odd outcome: the GOP candidate for governor in Colorado, Maes, may end up polling under 10%. Which would downgrade the GOP to minor-party status in Colorado for the next election cycle.

One observer noted a heartening trend: The handful of Tea Partiers who *did* get elected against initial expectations -- Paul, Rubio, etc. -- were smart and qualified. The losers were the mental cases and not-too-brights -- Angle, O'Donnell, Paladino, McMahon, Maes, Miller, etc.

It's bad that so many Tea Party candidates *were* mental cases, extremists, or idiots. But it's good that the election winnowed them out. Voters might be mad, but they're not crazy.

 

57 candidates? Where did that number come from? Are you just grabbing anybody with an "R" behind their name as tea party related?

 

Wow, so much idiocy in this comment, its hard to know where to start.

So if the tea party folks who lost are "mental cases, extremists, or idiots" as you so ridiculously claim them to be, what do you make of all the Democrats who lost yesterday?

B/c there were alot more Democrats then tea party folks, who got trounced here.

You lefties need to better pick your arguements b/c saying the tea party got trounced, when no political party, in this case Democrats, has been beat this bad in the past 80 years, is pretty much summed up in 1 word:

Stupid.

 

LOL..nothing to see here except more liberal arrogance. But please stick around and keep amusing us with your brilliant analysis.
Moving on.

 

I saw it on CNN last night.

 

That's a false equivalency. Many of the Tea Party candidates that lost were idiots, extremists or spectacularly underqualified; that's simply a fact.

Some Democrats who lost were idiots, too (Greene in South Carolina, Grayson in Florida). But many of the Democrats who lost were simply on the losing end of a large wave.

Consider that liberal Democrats were largely untouched (because they're usually in safe liberal districts) while the conservative Blue Dog coalition got cut in *half*. Feingold was the exception that proved the rule.

So yesterday's election made the Democratic caucus more liberal. It eliminated the Democrats you were most likely to agree with on some issues.

It went the other way in 2008: Democrats got a lot more conservative (because a lot of conservative Democrats won in swing districts) and so did Republicans (because their moderates got killed, while the most conservative Republicans were in safe districts).

But it's not like the GOP swung back toward the middle here, as you might expect. Instead they got *more* conservative.

That's all a bad sign for getting things done in a divided Congress. I also think it's a bad sign for the GOP in 2012. Many of their people in swing districts are more conservative than their district to begin with, and they'll be supporting a hard-right agenda for the next two years. So I think we can expect to see the pendulum rebalance a bit in 2012. Then add in other factors: the economy can be expected to improve between now and then, and much of the credit will go to Obama, who will also increase Democratic turnout when he's on the ticket.

Between reversion to the mean and an improved economy, Democrats in 2012 should win back some (but not nearly all) of what they lost yesterday.

 

The Tea Party didn't need to win a single election yesterday to be a huge winner for its members. The battle was enjoined WITH THE REPUBLICAN HEGEMONY, not the Dems. The test will be to see how lasting these changes will prove to be. Will we continue to see more DeMint and less Graham? I like our chances.

TP was nothing 2 years ago. It went from zero to a national force all on grassroots effort and if that doesn't scare the pants off all the entrenched plutocrats, jacklegs and cleptocrats in BOTH PARTIES then they are blind.

Just look at what's happened to '*********'. It's gone save the Krazy Kos Kids and radio call in folks, oh, and Bill Press. That tells the story. The TP's got weight now and be very afraid.

 

you realize a lot more than 57 republicans lost yesterday right?