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 Offline sooz06
PostPosted: 01/11/10 3:18 pm • # 1 
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I'm very curious to see if this "tea party activism" ends up causing significant difficulties for the Rs ~ Sooz


By Lee Fang at 1:34 pm
At Least 16 Tea Party Activists Step Up To Challenge Top Republican Incumbents And Recruits

Recognizing the emerging popularity of the so-called tea parties, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele sought to embrace the fringe movement. "If I wasn't doing this job, I'd be out there with the tea partiers," Steele recently told Fox News' Neil Cavuto. But the tea party movement Steele is encouraging does not appear to be a loyal servant to the GOP. Many of its activists are in fact running for office to take on Republicans.

In December, ThinkProgress reported that ten GOP incumbents were being challenged by tea party activists in Republican primaries. In the interim weeks, many more tea party activists have stepped up to challenge both top Republican recruits and more Republican incumbents, denouncing the hand-picked candidates as too moderate and current lawmakers as divorced from conservative governance:

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- Despite his recent conversion to the GOP, Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL) is facing a serious challenge from tea party activist Les Phillip in the Republican primary. Local conservative radioshow host Dale Jackson said both Michael Steele and the NRCC should be "ashamed" to support Griffith. "He was unacceptable a year ago and he's acceptable now? A year ago, they were saying this guy was a murderer."

- Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) has drawn several tea party challengers in his primary election. Jerry Ray Hall - no relation - even submitted his ballot application with the word "Tea" after his middle name.

- Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX) faces developer and tea party supporter Frank Roszell in a primary. "No one will jerk my chain but my wife," he promises on his campaign Web site.

- Chris Younts is challenging Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) for the Republican nomination. "Contrary to opinions on both sides, the Tea Party movement was never intended to play the role of an infatuated, doting cheerleader of all players with an 'R' on their jersey, regardless of past indiscretions," noted Younts.

- The National Republican Campaign Committee has placed its support behind State Sen. Robert Hurt (R-VA) to run against Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). However, Hurt has been eviscerated by his tea party opponents for voting to raise taxes and recently, for refusing to participate in the tea party-organized debates.

- Former Rep. Mike Sodrel (R-IN), in a coup for the NRCC, announced that he intends to run against Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN). However, tea party activists Todd Young and Travis Hankins have been campaigning for this seat for months, and it remains to be seen if Sodrel can surpass them in the GOP primary.

The emergence of the tea parties as the opposition movement says more about Republicans than it does the agenda of the Obama administration. The Republican Party has not articulated coherent plans to deal with the health care crisis, poverty, global warming, dependence on foreign oil, financial industry abuses, or any other major national issue. Perhaps that is why so many tea party-goers are now challenging the Republican status quo.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/11/ste ... challenge/
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gopqed
PostPosted: 01/11/10 4:11 pm • # 2 
Another mountain out of a molehill. Primaries are intra-party contests, and there are often challengers to incumbents and multiple candidates in open seats. Believe it or not, it even happens in the Democratic party's primaries. Just ask Joe Lieberman and Arlen Specter, among others.
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 Offline sooz06
PostPosted: 01/11/10 4:27 pm • # 3 
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I disagree about "Another mountain out of a molehill" ~ I see it as a potential big problem ~ if several tea party candidates win those primaries and if they win those seats from more moderate Rs, it can easily push Rs so far right to make BIG problems for the party ~ the tea party contingent is already causing a lot of big time financial contributors to contribute to individual candidates INSTEAD OF to the R party ~

Sooz
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 Offline jimwilliam
PostPosted: 01/12/10 3:02 am • # 4 
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They don't have to be successful. They just have to be noisy enough to push the Republicans to the far right. That's their goal and, judging from Steele's comments, they are being successful.
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gopqed
PostPosted: 01/12/10 3:48 am • # 5 
The Republicans have survived Ron Paul and his supporters just fine, and that's the wing of the party that are in evidence here. While CAP lists four incumbents inits article they don't provide any evidence that there's anything behind those challenges or that there's any possibility the incumbents are in any kind of trouble.

How many Democrat incumbents are facing primary challengers? I would guess there are at least 10. And I would expect that the left-wing groups supporting Democrats are supporting challengers to incumbents and to candidates being pushed by party leaders.

Primaries are intended to produce contests for nominations. The existence of challengers doesn't mean those challengers have any chance of winning or even being able to influence the tone of the campaign.
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 Offline jimwilliam
PostPosted: 01/12/10 4:02 am • # 6 
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gopqed wrote:
The Republicans have survived Ron Paul and his supporters just fine, and that's the wing of the party that are in evidence here. While CAP lists four incumbents inits article they don't provide any evidence that there's anything behind those challenges or that there's any possibility the incumbents are in any kind of trouble.

How many Democrat incumbents are facing primary challengers? I would guess there are at least 10. And I would expect that the left-wing groups supporting Democrats are supporting challengers to incumbents and to candidates being pushed by party leaders.

Primaries are intended to produce contests for nominations. The existence of challengers doesn't mean those challengers have any chance of winning or even being able to influence the tone of the campaign.
The difference between the normal attempts by the extremists of either side vieing for nomination and the tea baggers is that, normally, the head of the party does not endorse the extremists.
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gopqed
PostPosted: 01/12/10 6:19 am • # 7 
He's been in Congress for something like 20 years over the last 35 or so. I think it's been OK. Image

I thought people here were criticizing "ideological purity" in the GOP a while back - This just shows that there are different ideological factions within the party running campaigns against each other.
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 Offline jimwilliam
PostPosted: 01/12/10 6:26 am • # 8 
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I thought people here were criticizing "ideological purity" in the GOP a while back - This just shows that there are different ideological factions within the party running campaigns against each other.

 I don't recall anybody ever accusing the Gop of pure ideologically or in any other way.
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