Tea Party Targets Incumbent Senators

I cannot help but relish in some ways the manner in which the GOP's self-created Frankenstein monster - a/k/a the Tea Party - has now turned on those in the party that display a semblance of sanity. Of course, right behind the Tea Party are the ranks of the Christian Taliban - the other twin pillar of the GOP's party base. Politics is about electing candidates to office or so the saying goes. With the Tea Party, one's electability isn't an issue. Rather it's all about adherence to a litmus test concerning ideology. Never mind the fact that in a general election, the Tea Party's ideology is deemed frightening by many. The last round of Senate elections in Delaware and Nevada are a case in point. The Daily Beast has a piece that looks at Senate incumbents now in the cross hairs of the Tea Party. Here are some highlights:
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Orrin Hatch is conservative by almost any measure, but these days that’s not enough to shield him from the right. There’s a credible challenger in the wings and a real possibility that the Utah senator could become the first establishment casualty of the 2012 season.
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The Tea Party movement first demonstrated its clout last year by knocking off Hatch’s Utah colleague, Bob Bennett. Now the movement’s activists have served notice that they are displeased with several big-name Republican senators. Hatch, like most of them, is cultivating the grassroots, moving rightward, and hoping to fend off a serious primary challenger.
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It’s already too late for that in Indiana, where state treasurer Richard Mourdock is taking on Richard Lugar. And it may be too late for Hatch, who could well face Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a self-described “definite maybe” who will decide after Labor Day whether to run. Others drawing conservative scrutiny and complaints are Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and Bob Corker of Tennessee.
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What all this amounts to is nothing less than a redefinition of conservatism—or, at least, the brand of conservatism acceptable to those who have the power to boot Republicans who have long toed what used to be the party line.
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Many of Hatch’s alleged sins, as reeled off by Chaffetz and the Club for Growth, involve his support for such George W. Bush initiatives as TARP (the bank bailout), the Medicare prescription-drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind education act. He also backed earmarks (unfashionable these days), raising the debt ceiling (once considered a responsible vote to avoid default), and a 2007 extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
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Indiana is another hotbed of unrest. Most of the state’s GOP establishment has endorsed Mourdock and all three national groups are looking at the race. Lugar, facing what conservative “Hoosier Pundit” blogger Scott Fluhr habitually calls “Lugargeddon,” has removed his name from the DREAM Act to help children of illegal immigrants. He recently signed on to a bill to replace the income tax with the “fair tax,” a national sales tax.
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So far Snowe has two challengers hoping to capitalize on conservative frustration: Scott D’Amboise, a small businessman aligned with the Tea Party, and Andrew Ian Dodge, who heads Maine Tea Party Patriots. Neither is getting much traction.
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Corker, who has negotiated with Democrats over financial reform and auto bailouts, is a top target of RedState.com founder Erick Erickson. “He pushes the Senate GOP left and toward capitulation. He is contemptuous of conservatives,” Erickson wrote last month. Yet Corker fits squarely in his state’s bipartisan tradition of centrists, and so far no challenger has surfaced. The same is true in Massachusetts, where Brown won a stunning upset last year for Kennedy’s old seat.
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[W]ill these groups go to the mat next year for conservative challengers who are inexperienced or erratic, who display sub-par fundraising, communication, or organizational skills, in hard-to-win liberal or moderate states? Probably not. For the moment, at least, it seems the maturing Tea Party movement has raised the bar.
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Time will tell what the Tea Party will do. Meanwhile, opportunists in the GOP who laughed at Tea Part loons attacking Democrats probably aren't laughing so much any more.