A Day After Tea Party Victory in FL, Liberal Media Claims ‘Establishment’ Victory For GOP

Good Job Curt Clawson

A day after the Tea Party-backed candidate, Curt Clawson, won the Republican primary in Florida’s 19th congressional district, the liberal media has worked to downplay the significance of the Tea Party in heating up around the country in anticipation of the 2014 midterm elections.

In fact, according to The Wire, the GOP has “successfully” squashed the Tea Party rebellion within the GOP. 

Nobody tell Republican favorites Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz or Mike Lee this…

Of course, the certainty of the future direction of the Republican Party remains in flux and while Clawson’s victory is a tremendous win for the Tea Party, it most certainly does not mean the battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party is over.

In a laughably tone-deaf article that reeks of mere wishful thinking on the part of the writer, Philip Bump, The Wire notes in an article entitled, “GOP Leaders Are Successfully Fighting Off the Tea Party Rebellion (For Now)”:

The long-expected Tea Party-versus-Republican-establishment primary brawl seems to have largely evaporated. The real battles may emerge in January 2015, when the party needs to pick the House speaker — and maybe also a new leader in the Senate.Not that we’re trying to get ahead of ourselves. It’s seemed pretty clear since at least February that the threat that had been brewing in the wake of the government shutdown was quickly fading. Politico has a great look at how South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham effectively built a fortress to ward off any conservative challengers: working to neuter possible opponents, building a huge war chest, and flooding the state with aides and representatives. Graham is one of the senators that seemed a likely target for far-right insurgents, but it didn’t pan out.

In Ohio, House Speaker John Boehner faces a few primary opponents, including one, J. D. Winteregg, who has received broad support from Tea Party groups. There’s no polling in the race, so it’s hard to gauge exactly how big a threat Winteregg will turn out to be. But if money is any guide — and in politics, it tends to be — Winteregg has raised 1/127th of Boehner’s nest egg, according to The Washington Post. For every two dollars Boehner can spend, Winteregg can spend a little over a penny. That isn’t everything, but it bodes poorly. As does the fact that there are other protest candidates that will split the anti-Boehner vote.

So: Would all the Republican leaders who are coming back to Washington in 2015 please step forward? Not so fast, Mitch McConnell. The Senate majority leader faces the most significant challenge of any of the senior Republicans — thanks not to the Tea Party (he’s almost certainly going to trounce Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin) but to Democrats. A new poll from The New York Times shows that McConnell is up by only a point over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. In part, that’s probably due to his favorability rating in the state. Forty percent of Kentuckians think he’s doing a good job. Fifty-two percent think he isn’t. There’s a lot of time before November, and McConnell’s campaign against Grimes has barely ticked into gear. But compared to Graham — running in a deep red state — McConnell’s position is uneasy…

By all appearances, the primaries are over and the Republican establishment won. Instead, stay tuned for next January’s leadership fight(s).

Yawn. Cherry-picking select races where a scrappy challenger is facing off with entrenched Party leadership should convince few to begin the eight-count for the Tea Party. Furthermore, while many Tea Party groups endorse Matt Bevin, various Tea Party groups are not wholly unified on this front as some Tea Party groups endorse Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

The struggle for the Republican Party remains far from over and while Mr. Bump may rejoice in the obvious sophistication of the entrenched establishment Republican campaign machine, for every John Boehner retained, one can point to a Rep. Huelskamp. For every Lindsey Graham that can remain in power, one cannot help but notice Tea Party firebrands like Sens. Cruz, Paul and Lee and the massive influence they’re having on conservative politics in America. 

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/04/23/a-day-after-tea-party-victory-in-fl-liberal-media-claims-establishment-victory-in-gop/