The Texas tea party’s best days may be behind it

[FuzzyLumpkins]

In the five years since the tea party was born, Texas has been a hotbed of the movement: It was tea party activists who powered Gov. Rick Perry to a crushing reelection win and catapulted Sen. Ted Cruz to national fame.

But as voters go to the polls Tuesday for the state’s primary election, it’s clear the tea party’s heyday in the Lone Star State — at least for the moment — has passed. A push to unseat two of the GOP establishment’s most prominent figures, Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions, has all but collapsed. And nearly all of the 23 House GOP incumbents seeking reelection are expected to glide to primary wins, many against underfunded, obscure tea party opponents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/texas-tea-party-104197.html

Big money kept weakside contain and the primary end around has been shut down.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/texas-tea-party-104197.html

Big money kept weakside contain and the primary end around has been shut down.

Tea Party Favorability Falls to Lowest Yet


http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/4t41va_j-kg22owwqk4mja.png

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166217/tea-party-favorability-falls-lowest-yet.aspx

But that 30% of approving, ignorant fucktards is hard core, paranoid, delusional, and very well financed by Kock Bros, etc, astro-turfers all the way.

[angrydude]

Both tea party candidates for state office in my district won over incumbents. Seems to be working pretty well.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Both tea party candidates for state office in my district won over incumbents. Seems to be working pretty well.

Forth Worth?

Each district sends one rep to the legislature. Judicial, and executive positions are statewide referendums. How you get two being sent from one district?

[boutons_deux]

Texas Republicans Choose Establishment Candidates Over Tea Partyers

Republican incumbents threatened by tea party challengers emerged triumphant in Tuesday’s Texas primary, with longtime U.S. Senator John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions coasting to victory.

The primary also marked the electoral debut of the fourth generation of the Bush dynasty with George P. Bush’s candidacy. The son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, nephew and grandson of the former presidents and great-grandson of a U.S. senator, the 37-year-old won the Republican nomination for Texas land commissioner, a little-known but powerful post that has served as a launching pad for state politics.

The Associated Press projected all three as the winners shortly after polls closed.

The Texas election kicked off the 2014 campaign season with themes expected to play out among conservatives across the country this year. Cornyn was one of more than a dozen incumbent GOP senators facing tea party opponents, and Bush is among several candidates trying to parlay family ties into elective office.

Cornyn, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, led in early returns Tuesday over U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, who represents a district to the south and east of Houston. Stockman waged a bizarre campaign, skipping public appearances and relying on gags such as rewarding donors with Obama barf bags. The victory makes Cornyn the odds-on favorite in November; Democrats have not won statewide office in Texas in 20 years.

Some experts consider Cornyn’s margin of victory, once all the ballots are counted, a bellwether of anti-incumbent sentiment.

“If Cornyn comes out below 60 percent, then the sense is that he looks relatively weak,” said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. As early votes were counted, Cornyn was exceeding that level.

“It’s a protest vote,” said Stuart Rothenberg, who analyzes races for his nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, adding that if Stockman were to get 20 percent to 25 percent of the vote, “it would tell you there’s a chunk of the Republican Party who will vote for anybody who challenges the Republican establishment.”

Mark Jones, chairman of the political science department at Houston’s Rice University, was tracking Cornyn’s margin of victory compared with that of Republican gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott.

Abbott, the state attorney general, had far more cash and name recognition than his three challengers and had already been facing off against the Democratic candidate for November, state Sen. Wendy Davis. Davis garnered national attention last year during her 11-hour filibuster of state legislation that eventually restricted access to abortion statewide.


“The closer Cornyn is to Abbott, the better we should gauge his performance,” Jones said.

In the governor’s race, the first without an incumbent since 1990, voters can expect continued “trench warfare” between Abbott and Davis on a statewide and national scale, Henson said.

The two have been attacking each other in recent months over everything from his alliance with shock rocker Ted Nugent to exaggerations in the onetime single mother’s hard-luck campaign trail biography.

“We’ll continue to see them battling it out from news cycle to news cycle,” Henson said.

Like Cornyn, Sessions beat back a tea party challenge, his by activist Katrina Pierson.

Bush’s primary opponent, east Texas businessman David Watts, raised a fraction of the millions Bush amassed. It’s been nearly five years since a Bush held elected office, the longest lapse in 32 years. Partisans hope that Bush, a Fort Worth lawyer and Navy veteran fluent in Spanish, will revive his family’s role in Republican politics while expanding the party’s appeal to Latino voters.

“Republicans around the country who remain loyal to former President George W. Bush and his father are going to see this George Bush as part of that legacy and somebody they can support. And other Republicans are going to see George P. as quite a profile: His mother’s Mexican, he can appeal to Latino voters, he’s young, articulate,” Rothenberg said. “The question is what kind of resume does he build in office.”

http://www.nationalmemo.com/texas-republicans-choose-establishment-candidates-tea-partyers/ (http://www.nationalmemo.com/texas-republicans-choose-establishment-candidates-tea-partyers/)

[angrydude]

Forth Worth?

Each district sends one rep to the legislature. Judicial, and executive positions are statewide referendums. How you get two being sent from one district?

1 each from the house and senate districts.

[angrydude]

deleted

[Nbadan]

In Texas its very difficult to distinguish between tea baggers and non tea baggers because they are all equally nutty....Take Lamar Smith for example....he'd be really nutty anywhere else...in TX though, he's a moderate nut...

[Bill_Brasky]

I never understood the point of the tea party. Were they supposed to be more republican than the normal republicans? Or did it start as a legit thing and then the republicans killed it with their zanyness?

[Trainwreck2100]

It started withtaxes and spending them became about Jesus and immigration

[exstatic]

In Texas its very difficult to distinguish between tea baggers and non tea baggers because they are all equally nutty....Take Lamar Smith for example....he'd be really nutty anywhere else...in TX though, he's a moderate nut...

[Nbadan]

McConnell: We Will 'Crush' Tea Party Challengers 'Everywhere'




Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) believes that incumbent Republicans won't have a problem holding their seats in the 2014 elections.

"I think we are going to crush them everywhere," McConnell said about Tea Party challengers in a New York Times interview published Saturday. "I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country."

McConnell faces a primary challenge from the right. The Senate Conservatives Fund, which backs Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin, believes the candidate has a chance of defeating McConnell the the primary.

"Mitch McConnell is clearly in trouble in this primary or he wouldn’t be attacking Matt Bevin and declaring war on conservatives," Matt Hoskins, the head of the SCF, told the New York Times.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcconnell-crush-tea-party

[Nbadan]

Then there is this..

Tea Party Loses Key Battles, But Is Winning The War
Ben Jacobs


Defeats handed to Tea Party candidates last night only tell half the story—the Tea Party’s real success has been to change the very DNA of the GOP

The Tea Party got shut out on Tuesday night.

In Idaho, incumbent Rep. Mike Simpson easily defeated Bryan Smith, the Club for Growth-backed challenger. In Kentucky, businessman Matt Bevin got walloped by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the two most establishment candidates made the runoff in the Republican Senate primary in Georgia.

Ironically enough, however, last night represented a big win for the Tea Party's ultra-conservative ethos, and the extent to which Tea Party philosophy is now cemented into the GOP is now plain to see.



Despite not having any candidates who draped themselves in Gadsden flags win marquee races on Tuesday, the election results showed the ultimate success of the Tea Party’s effort to change the very DNA of the GOP, as the median voter in a Republican primary has become far more conservative in the past few years. The “establishment” candidates may have won—but they did so by becoming increasingly conservative.



The biggest win for the Tea Party was in Georgia, a state where outside Tea Party groups declined to endorse any candidate in the GOP primary. There, the most two establishment candidates, businessman David Perdue and Rep. Jack Kingston, beat three socially conservative opponents, Reps. Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey as well as former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/21/tea-party-loses-key-battles-but-is-winning-the-war.html

[RandomGuy]

It started withtaxes and spending them became about Jesus and immigration

I went to a Tea Party rally once, and it was pretty much only about how "they" were going to "take away God".

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Then there is this..

Tea Party Loses Key Battles, But Is Winning The War
Ben Jacobs


more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/21/tea-party-loses-key-battles-but-is-winning-the-war.html

The author seems to not understand the difference between rhetoric and actual policy. They spent advertising dollars and talked shit for the win. Do you really think the establishment is going to change anything?

[scott]

Tea Party about to win Lt. Gov, Attorney General, Ag Commissioner, tbh. Not really sure how that translates to their demise in Texas.

They are also about to pick up 3 seats in the Senate (Carona's seat, Dan Patrick's seat, Wendy Davis' seat).

They also forced Bob Deuell into a run-off, and beat Diane Patrick and Bennett Ratliff in the House.

Unfortunately the story on the State-level is that Texas is becoming more Tea, not less.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Tea Party about to win Lt. Gov, Attorney General, Ag Commissioner, tbh. Not really sure how that translates to their demise in Texas.

They are also about to pick up 3 seats in the Senate (Carona's seat, Dan Patrick's seat, Wendy Davis' seat).

They also forced Bob Deuell into a run-off, and beat Diane Patrick and Bennett Ratliff in the House.

Unfortunately the story on the State-level is that Texas is becoming more Tea, not less.

That is pretty impressive. Wonder how libertarian they will be.

[scott]

That is pretty impressive. Wonder how libertarian they will be.

They just beat Bob Deuell too, with an alleged wife beater.

How libertarian? It's a mixed back. Patrick is definitely free market guy, mixed in with far far far right social stances. Huffines taking Carona's seat is supposed to be libertarian. Konni Burton taking Davis' seat is just a nutjob.

[boutons_deux]

Abbot + Patrick running RickyBobby's political machine?

The TX 99% and environment would be even more fucked and unfuckable.

[angrydude]

They just beat Bob Deuell too, with an alleged wife beater.

How libertarian? It's a mixed back. Patrick is definitely free market guy, mixed in with far far far right social stances. Huffines taking Carona's seat is supposed to be libertarian. Konni Burton taking Davis' seat is just a nutjob.

Huffines strikes me as dishonest. He says tea-party things but doesn't really seem to understand what he's talking about. His campaign was also very dishonest. He strikes me as someone wanting to go to austin for the business opportunities instead of political ideology.

[baseline bum]

He says tea-party things but doesn't really seem to understand what he's talking about.

Sounds pretty consistent tbh