Toomey is not a Tea Party candidate. He ran six years ago and almost unseated Specter in the primary. It is believed, at least locally, that Arlen Specter went Democratic because he couldn’t beat Toomey in the Republican primary, only to lose to Sestak in the Democratic primary.
Toomey didn’t need the help of the Tea Party, and other than a few positions that aligned with them I don’t recall too much support for him from them. He won on his own, more or less.
Overall, 61% of Tea Party backed candidates lost. If the election was (as they claimed) a test of the Tea Party, they failed it miserably.
Not that THEY are spinning it that way, but looking at the overall results reveals a more accurate picture of their power than indivdual races.
Well, if the Tea Party did so poorly then we can thank normal every day voters for the Democrat shellacking… That works for me!
The ‘shellacking’ was accomplished by returning mostly incumbents and political insiders to Congress. Is that what you had in mind?
Gosh, I’m confused 
Maybe the Democrats did better than I thought.
I’ll say. 435 seats were decided in the House, 62 changed parties, and even less were supported by Tea Party groups. 37 seats up for grabs in the Senate, and only 7 change parties. How can you conclude most of the winners were somehow not incumbents and insiders?
Even in that context it was a big win for the Republican Party, if not for the Tea Party Republican faction. Incumbents are generally returned to office at about a 90% rate, and the Republicans took many more seats than could ordinarily be expected based on historical trends. It was a big loss for the Democrats, and there’s not much you can say to lessen that except to say that they still have control of the Senate, which should be some small consolation.
You misunderstand what I was arguing. The Tea Party was all about throwing out all the incumbents and Washington insiders. In that respect, the Tea Party failed miserably.
That’s what they said they were about. You don’t actually buy that, I assume.
-Joe
[quote=“Fear_Itself, post:48, topic:559321”]
You misunderstand what I was arguing. The Tea Party was all about throwing out all the incumbents and Washington insiders. In that respect, the Tea Party failed miserably.
[/QUOTE
That’s all they were about…excuse me, are about?
I’m sure the majority found pulling the “R” lever quite acceptable… either that or [see post #43 above]
.
Yeah, the lever for Republican incumbents and Republican insiders.
Yes, it’s obvious that the Republican Party had pretty good, even spectacular, election results this year. Isn’t this thread about how the Tea Party did? And didn’t the Tea Party not do very good?
As far as I can tell, Tea Party candidates won where one would have, under the circumstances, expected Republicans to do well (Kentucky), and lost where one would have, under the circumstances, expected Republicans to do well (Colorado), and got smashed where one would have, under the circumstances, expected Republicans to get smashed (New York). So if they won seats that would have been Republican anyway, and lost seats in places like Colorado, Nevada, and Delaware that were ripe for a Republican takeover, how’d they do?
I can only see the effect of the Tea Party on the elections as negative for the Republican Party, and negative for the Tea Party.
I’m sure that works for you and i understand you are thrilled with the results but that has nothing to do with this thread does it? the Republicans did great, the Tea Party did well below expectations and severely harmed the Republican efforts at taking the senate. Somebody up there said they lost 61% of their races, i would love to know what their record was on competitive races.
My fault… if you all want to focus on the movement as if it were a third party that has been around for more than roughly 20 months, why would I even want to to suggest otherwise.
Exactly. If the teabaggers win, they win, and if they lose they weren’t even really a party anyway so why would anyone expect them to win!
-Joe
I think they did well enough that they can convince themselves they won. I think they’re vocal enough to have an amazingly strong voice in the primaries. And I think the vocal parts are the most out of touch with the opinions of the rest of America.
In Delaware Christine O’Donnell demonstrated that she was preposterously unqualified. Althought she is in her early forties, she has never had a real job in her life. There is much question about her sources of income. She may have broken the law by using campaign contributions for personal expenses.
On FOX News she claimed that American scientists had bred mice with “fullly functional human brains.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_4if1x1pH8
That statement reveals an almost frightening ignorance of basic science.
O’Donnell went down to crashing defeat, but her supporters supported her with passionate intensity. Their consensus seemed to be that her incompetence did not matter, because she would vote the way she was told to vote, and she would vote for tax cuts.
The Tea Party did not do really well in the last election. Nevertheless, it says bad things about the political culture of the United States what when millions of Americans are facing long term unemployment the only mass political movement with any enthusiasm is one that demands that the government do nothing to help the unemployed.
During the New Deal the mass political movement was the labor movement. It was to the left of Franklin Roosevelt, but it supported Roosevelt, and pulled him to the left. The Tea Party stands in the way of the direction the country should be moving in.
In this election, you can glimpse the brutish future of American politics. This new age of brutishness may or may not include the Tea Party. But, even if the Tea Party dissipates, the anger undergirding it will not…
We’re entering a period of austerity, far different from anything we’ve ever seen before…
Both parties are posturing to assume the mantle of fiscal conservatism, a trend that the success of the Tea Party will only exacerbate…
With resources shrinking, the competition for them will inflame. Each party will find itself in a death struggle to protect the resources that flow to its base—and, since the game will be zero-sum, each will attempt to expropriate the resources that flow to the other side…if you thought our politics had grown nasty, you haven’t even begun to consider the ugliness of the politics of scarcity…
It’s precisely the Democratic Party’s historic base—minorities, labor, the poor—that will take the greatest hit in coming years.
I tend to agree with them as well.
All else being equal, I would obviously prefer someone with more intelligence and education than O’Donnell in office. But if that was the only choice available, for a non-executive position, I would vote for someone who I agreed with ideologically over someone with more competance.
[FTR, I suspect the vast majority of other people would do the same as a practical matter, and the only difference is that most other people would convince themselves that their guy was actually competant.]
Note: this is a general comment and not about O’Donnell specifically - I’m not up on all her positions.