Complaints that tea party hurt GOP’s Senate hopes

WASHINGTON (AP) - Tea party-backed candidates helped and hindered Republicans, injecting enthusiasm into campaigns but losing Senate seats held by Democrats in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada that the GOP once had big hopes of capturing.

Republican leaders and strategists are muttering that the same tea party activists who elevated Speaker-to-be John Boehner and the party to power in the House simultaneously hobbled the GOP’s outside shot of running the Senate. Tea partiers largely spurned establishment candidates in the GOP primaries and helped nominate Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado.

Full Story Here:
Complaints that tea party hurt GOP’s Senate hopes

It had to happen. Someone was bound to point their finger at The TEA Party and look to pass the blame for losses along to them (The TEA Party). It was inevitable.

The truth is, The TEA Party DID influence some races by supporting candidates. What the TEA Party is NOT responsible for is the LOSS of a race, particularly the ones in question in this story from AP.

Republicans won Senate races in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That put them within three seats of a 50-50 split. In the case, Vice President Joe Biden would have broken the tie and allowed Democrats to retain their majority.

A 50-50 split would have been a workable solution, not the perfect solution, but one that would have been very workable in a *super majority* situation. The TEA Party worked hard to promote candidates that had true Conservative beliefs, sadly, The TEA Party didn’t take things like having a BIG MOUTH or a questionable past into consideration.

In Delaware, tea party activists rallied behind O’Donnell over nine-term moderate Republican Rep. Mike Castle. Party leaders tried to crush O’Donnell; the state party chairman said she could not be elected dogcatcher, much less a senator.

Voters went with O’Donnell and Republican officials in Washington largely abandoned the race. There were revelations about financial troubles and the emergence of TV footage in which she spoke out against masturbation and talked about dabbling in witchcraft as a teenager.

On Friday, she blamed Washington Republicans for her loss to Democrat Chris Coons.

That’s right Christine, it was everyone but YOU. Your past, your words, your financial skills, or lack thereof, had nothing to do with your not being elected, it was all because the GOP didn’t back you.

Then there’s Sharon Angle.

Sure, she would be a better Senator than Harry Reid, a monkey would be a better Senator than Harry Reid, but is a person that makes gaffs reminiscent of Joe Biden what the TEA Party wants or someone the Conservative could support and vote for? Apparently not.

Angle was dogged by missteps. She told a group of Hispanic students they looked Asian, drew ridicule for avoiding reporters and suggested a “militant terrorist situation” has allowed Islamic religious law to take hold in some American cities.

“My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas, are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States,” she said. “It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

Unlike in Delaware, national Republicans and their allies stood with Angle and waged a bruising campaign that came up short against Reid.

I agree, Sharia law has no place in America, but wouldn’t Angle have been a lot better off to have focused on HER senatorial race and not making racial gaffs? As to why the GOP stood with Angle and not O’Donnell, maybe even the GOP recognized O’Donnell for what she really was, an unelectable ding-a-ling with a questionable past.

Now, let’s take a look at Colorado.

In Colorado, Republicans nominated tea party favorite Ken Buck over Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. Republicans hoped Norton would have an easy race against Sen. Michael Bennet, appointed to the seat that Ken Salazar vacated when he stepped down to become President Barack Obama’s interior secretary.

“Did they help Ken Buck win the nomination? You bet,” said Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams. “Were they responsible for his defeat? Absolutely not.”

Buck, a district attorney, proved an easier opponent. Although he had tea party backing, he also had expressed views that Democrats seized on to peel away enough voters, mostly women who disagreed with his comments on rape and abortion.

I don’t know what Buck said about rape and abortion, I have to admit, during the elections process this year I was very involved with local and Texas state elections and didn’t give a lot of real notice to Colorado. I know Buck wasn’t making the national news like Angle and O’Donnell. Our news here in the D/FW area wasn’t covering Colorado either. So, I can’t say one word, for or against Buck, I honestly have NO OPINION on this one.

I can tell you this, a very electable shew-in can cost himself an election if he uses the wrong words in reference to rape. You can turn every woman in your state against you. And gaffs in general, well, they can KILL a campaign.

The best example I can come up with is former Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams.

During the campaign, Williams publicly made a joke likening rape to bad weather, having quipped: “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it”. Also, during the campaign, allegations were made that as an undergraduate at Texas A&M, Williams had visited the Chicken Ranch, a brothel in La Grange, and the Boy’s Towns of Mexico. He further offended some citizens when he urged Hispanic Americans to support his candidacy because he met Modesta in a Mexican restaurant. SOURCE

The bottom line? Words have consequences.

TEA Party patriots, Conservatives, ALL Americans, need to think for themselves and learn to take close looks at a candidate, and that candidates background. We can’t accept a candidate simply because Sarah Palin says so!

Even if Saint Sarah deems them a ‘Mama Grizzly’ and ‘mavericky’, that doesn’t mean that WE have to accept it as Gospel.

Some in the media have anointed Palin as the ‘leader’ of the TEA Party. That may be true in some TEA Party groups, but it’s NOT representative of ALL TEA Party groups. Palin may be the best cheer leader and funds raiser the GOP and TEA Party has ever had, but that doesn’t necessarily make her the best handicapper in elections history.

Jimmy ‘The Greek’ Snyder was a great sports handicapper, but his mouth got him in trouble. Does anyone remember this little *gem*?

The black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way — because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner — the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid. SOURCE

As said, words have consequences, lasting consequences. Maybe O’Donnell, Angle and Buck will stand as future examples of those unintended consequences, and maybe The Cheer Leader in Chief will learn to investigate backgrounds before she goes out on a limb and endorses people that just don’t have what it takes.

By golly, you betcha she should, doggone it…