TruthOut10
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- Dec 3, 2012
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Far-right Republicans are mounting primary challenges and foiling the GOP establishments hunt for electable candidates. David Freedlander on who will face the Tea Partys fury next.
One by one, they have fallen. Bob Bennett in Utah. Richard Lugar in Indiana. Mike Castle in Delaware. Longtime pols, all of them, with long records in the halls of power, or handpicked by national leaders to run for office. And one by one, they and others found their profiles as electable lawmakers with the record to prove it used as a cudgel against them by Tea Party activists determined to purge the Republican Party of any kind of wishy-washy moderation.
In 2010 it was an aberration. By 2012 it was a trend. And now that the 2014 elections are around the corner, the GOP machine has finally said enough, and enlisted Karl Rove and others to end the trend of far-right-wingers knocking off establishment-friendly candidates in Republican primaries. Those revolutionaries, you see, turned out to be weak general-election opponents against Democrats, and so the revolution was costing the GOP seats in statehouses and the Senate that were rightly theirs.
But revolutionaries have a tendency not to go down quietly, so when word leaked of Roves plan the Tea Party swung quickly into action, denouncing the machine for meddling and vowing to keep the heat on the establishment. Now the family dispute is threatening to turn into a full-scale civil war, playing out in states from Maine to Alaska. As the battle drums beat louder and louder, we scout out the field.
Which Politicians Are in the Tea Party's Crosshairs? - The Daily Beast
One by one, they have fallen. Bob Bennett in Utah. Richard Lugar in Indiana. Mike Castle in Delaware. Longtime pols, all of them, with long records in the halls of power, or handpicked by national leaders to run for office. And one by one, they and others found their profiles as electable lawmakers with the record to prove it used as a cudgel against them by Tea Party activists determined to purge the Republican Party of any kind of wishy-washy moderation.
In 2010 it was an aberration. By 2012 it was a trend. And now that the 2014 elections are around the corner, the GOP machine has finally said enough, and enlisted Karl Rove and others to end the trend of far-right-wingers knocking off establishment-friendly candidates in Republican primaries. Those revolutionaries, you see, turned out to be weak general-election opponents against Democrats, and so the revolution was costing the GOP seats in statehouses and the Senate that were rightly theirs.
But revolutionaries have a tendency not to go down quietly, so when word leaked of Roves plan the Tea Party swung quickly into action, denouncing the machine for meddling and vowing to keep the heat on the establishment. Now the family dispute is threatening to turn into a full-scale civil war, playing out in states from Maine to Alaska. As the battle drums beat louder and louder, we scout out the field.
Which Politicians Are in the Tea Party's Crosshairs? - The Daily Beast