In my view, to understand the Tea Party - which is in many ways just a repackaged version of the Christofascists - one must first recognize that its members are motivated by greed, hatred of those deemed "other" based on race, sexual orientation or religious faith, the embrace of ignorance, and/or plain insanity. Given this reality, it should come as little surprise that the Tea Party consistently backs down right crazy people with an ample sampling of racists and religious extremists. Not exactly the type of folks that do well in a general election even if they play well to an ever larger portion of the GOP base. Thankfully, by speaking out on their real views, many Tea Party darlings self-immolate. A column in the Washington Post looks at this ongoing phenomenon. Here are column excerpts:
The D.C.-based right-wing groups, it’s now patently obvious, have no clue how to pick insurgent challengers to knock off those “squishes” like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) or help win back a seat where the incumbent Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) is vulnerable.
In Kentucky, Sam Youngman reports on the downhill slide of Matt Bevin, the most heavily hawked right-winger by groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Madison Project, asking “Is this the end of Matt Bevin?” He explains: “The revelation last week that Bevin signed a letter to investors praising the 2008 bank bailouts, combined with Bevin’s tortured explanation and repeated condemnations of the bailout, make for a potentially fatal political blow. To McConnell’s re-election team, it represented ‘the final piece of the puzzle.’”
Nevertheless, right-wing groups have poured millions of dollars into its top five Senate races, including the Kentucky candidate. (Bevin is also the candidate who had a get-together with John Birchers.)
Today a spokeswoman for the [McConnell] campaign tells Right Turn that Bevin’s campaign is based on misrepresentations, “as he has been untruthful on everything from where he went to school, to his business background, to where he stands on the issues and he has been exposed.”
Candidate failure is hardly a unique phenomenon on the far right. In North Carolina, the GOP has an experienced, telegenic candidate in the state House, Speaker Thom Tillis. But not the right-wing groups. They put their hopes on Greg Brannon. Today, the political reporter for the Raleigh News Observer reports that in a civil trial he’s been held responsible for misleading investors.
If you invest your donors’ money and your endorsement in entirely unsuitable candidates, pretty soon donors, and everyone else, will regard your operation as a joke. The good news for Republicans is that these candidates self-destructed well before the primary. However, viable GOP candidates have had to spend time and money fending off their wacky competitors. That’s a big favor to the Senate Committee — the Democrats’.
I for one hope that the Tea Party remains utterly untethered from reality and continues to put forward utter whack jobs so as to force the GOP to squander money and/or shift rightward and make itself less competitive in general elections. These lunatics were welcomed into the GOP and now the party needs to pay the price.
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