Posted on 05/24/2014 10:38:23 AM PDT by mdittmar
Last week, primary elections in several states killed off a few ultraconservative candidates whose views flirted with nuttiness.
In Georgia, for example, U.S. Rep. Paul Broun — a physician who has called evolution and the big-bang theory "lies straight from the pit of hell" — drew only 9.8 percent of the vote in a crowded race to become the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.
In the same Georgia primary contest, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, an obstetrician-gynecologist, pulled down just 10 percent of the vote. Last year, the gaffe-prone Gingrey drew national ridicule for defending former Missouri congressman Todd Akin, who had said that natural processes protect a woman from pregnancy after rape.
Meanwhile, in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell easily dispatched a Republican challenger, Matt Bevin, who had suggested that legalizing gay marriage could lead to parents marrying their children.
Those results, among others, cheered the Republican establishment, which has grown tired of fielding weird candidates who cannot win general elections, and led to a round of obituaries for the tea party movement, which had backed several of the losers. According to the chattering classes, the election results prove that the tea party is on life support, a dying force in conservative politics. That goes double for the doyenne of the tea party movement, Sarah Palin, whose chosen candidate in the Georgia Senate primary, Karen Handel, also lost.
But that view is just wrong. Tea partyers have already accomplished what they set out to do: move the Republican Party much further to the right. While the foot-in-mouth, reality-challenged candidates may have been swept from the stage, the tea party has grafted its DNA into the GOP. The Republican Party is now a small tent of hard-right absolutists who deny science, worship the rich and detest compromise.
Ronald Reagan wouldn't recognize his party — and wouldn't be welcome there either, as former Florida governor Jeb Bush noted two years ago. "Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican Party — and I don't — as having an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement, doesn't allow for finding some common ground," he said.
Georgia's Republican primary for an open U.S. Senate seat (as Sen. Saxby Chambliss retires) was instructive. It was a frenzy of Obama-bashing, an unedifying contest among candidates who repeated far-right orthodoxy like a mantra. They pledged to fight Obamacare, to resist tax increases, to cut spending on social programs, to defend every citizen's right to own a shoulder-fired rocket launcher. Each of them pledged to fight abortion, though they all want to cut the programs that help keep poor babies healthy.
When the leading candidate, millionaire businessman David Perdue, said something rational, it was denounced as a gaffe and used as fodder by his opponents. Asked by a Macon Telegraph editorial writer whether he would chose spending cuts or increased revenue to improve the economy, Perdue said "both." His opponents jumped on the remark quickly, claiming he had given notice that he would raise taxes.
The peculiar aversion to compromise runs counter to the example set by Reagan, the patron saint of the modern conservative movement. He famously bartered with Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill to arrive at a 1983 agreement to cut spending and raise taxes, which firmed up Social Security for a generation.
Yet, the tea party takeover of the GOP is holding strong, producing an adherence to far-right dogma. That's what voters are likely to see in the runoff for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat, in which frontrunner Perdue will face U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston on July 22. Both candidates will feel pressure to prove themselves to the tea party supporters who voted for Gingrey, Broun and Handel, so they'll engage in even more ultraconservative rhetoric.
The Republican establishment thought it was going to use the energy of far-right activists to win elections while remaining firmly in control. If any members of the GOP establishment still believe that's what happened, they are only fooling themselves.
I love it when a plan comes together;)
It sounds as though little Cindy doesn’t have a problem with her “messiah” moving the DemocRATS into Josef Stalin territory.
The thought that the likes of Tucker would hold Ronald
Reagan up as a paragon of moderation to the GOP,
chaps my butt. The only reason Reagan could “meet
the middle ground” was that democrats at that time
were not taken over by the leftist ideologes in
control today, who make no pretense of moderation
in furthering their marxist/socialist/fascist goals.
Is this the commie ex-congress critter, or the one formerly of the AJ-Constipation?
...yet another black Communist heard from...
wow. some small reasoning ability from a leftist. haven’t seen that in a long time.
Therefore, the whole lot of them should be relocated to camps on the Eastern frontier. I mean Western frontier.
Of course the Tea Party movement (it’s not a party) has moved the Republican Party and the electorate to the right. That was the point of the whole thing. Of course lefty loonies like Tucker and the Democrats are not happy about this. What’s surprising is that many Freepers and other Conservatives are not happy either. It hasn’t moved far enough or fast enough to suit them, but that’s the nature of political change. When Cynthia ain’t happy, I’m very happy.
This is where she goes wrong. The tea party did indeed move the candidates to the right in the primary. But it doesn't make sense that they will be even more conservative in the runup to the general election. They will get some of those tea party voters if not all. But they will steer clear of emphasizing the most conservative of their positions, as always happens.
I see that her purpose is not to analyze the news but to scare the less-conservative voters. Lies from the pit of hell.
When Cynthia was with the Urinal-Constipation, I posted several of her anti-gun screeds here. Under ‘Author’, I always put, ‘Cynthia Tucker - Automatic Barf Alert’.
Amazing how mewling leftists convert reality
into propaganda.. and agitprop..
And it appears that the republican elite are indeed leftists.. and not too smart..
It's all about the shrinkage.. 
The problem with all the Stalinists is, if they get their way, they will find out they all can’t be Stalin.
Would that it were true.
Put her people in charge. What do you get?
"In 1994, Atlanta was ranked the most dangerous city in the country" wikipedia.org
Look at Detroit. Just look at the state of our entire country. This is what happens when these people are in control.
To compare, take a look at what a republican governor can do in Wisconsin or Texas. The difference is like night and day. And democrats prefer the night.
The premise of the article is entirely wrong. All the Tea party people managed to do was to barely slow down the Republican party from moving left. They are far to left of were they were just a few years ago.
Propaganda as usual.
But thy need to move them further.
Cynthia Tucker: “The Republican Party is now a small tent of hard-right absolutists who deny science, worship the rich and detest compromise.”
Hey, bimbo, I have some news for you: The Dim Party is now, and for some considerable time has been, a small band of ultra-left extremists who deny God, worship the state, and take a Khmer Rouge, scorched earth approach to governance.
Put that in your hashish pipe and smoke it.
What exactly was the purpose of this half-@ssed screed anyway?
As you can see, they resemble Jesse Jackson after the `Treyvon Martin' jury decision: barely concealed shock & outrage.
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