How the Tea Party May Hurt GOP Senate Prospects

[Liberal_in_LA]

How the Tea Party May Hurt GOP Senate Prospects
By Mark Halperin Monday, Jul. 12, 2010

The Tea Party may be the best thing that has happened to the Republican Party since Barack Obama got elected President. Its members, fed up and fired up, have sacrificed their time and personal pursuits to try to alter the direction of the government and effect real change.

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But now it could cost Republicans key Senate seats in November.

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There are two significant differences between Obama's grass-roots upswell and the rise of the Tea Party adherents. First, Obama attracted people across a wide swath of the political spectrum, from the far left to just right of center; the Tea Party is almost exclusively hard right. Second, the Obamans were insurgent in their mind-set but downright establishment in their technology, organization, fundraising and ability to use the existing rules to beat the power players at their own game. For all its energy, the Tea Party has not had the chance to demonstrate the same sustained capacity for winning methodology and follow-through.


That means that while the Tea Partyers are enthusiastic and have earned a series of short-term victories, they aren't necessarily destined for electoral success this fall. Their penchant for supporting less mainstream, less electable, more erratic candidates, according to some worried senior Republican strategists, might jeopardize Republican chances in at least five Senate races in November and even the GOP presidential nominee in the general election two years hence.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2003079,00.html?hpt=T2#ixzz0tWG9e3Ur

[PM Martin]

1. k/r

[AlinPA]

2. The republican party is essentially the teabagger party. Republicans like Snowe are on their way

out. Even rightwingers like McConnell, Boehner and are not conservative and racist enough.

[zotfreep]

3. the Republikkkan party and teabaggers.

The RepubliKKKan party IS the teabagger party. The Republicans are further right than the Stormfronters.