Rand Paul Not An Anomaly: More Fringe Tea Party Candidates Set To Knock Off Favored GOP Candidates
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 20th, 2010 4:38 am by HL
Rand Paul Not An Anomaly: More Fringe Tea Party Candidates Set To Knock Off Favored GOP Candidates
Last night, fringe tea party Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) sailed to victory in his primary over Trey Grayson, the GOP candidate favored by Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell and much of the Republican establishment. Not only did heavyweight Republicans like Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani stump for Grayson, but shadowy GOP front groups, like […]
Last night, fringe tea party Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) sailed to victory in his primary over Trey Grayson, the GOP candidate favored by Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell and much of the Republican establishment. Not only did heavyweight Republicans like Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani stump for Grayson, but shadowy GOP front groups, like the American Future Fund — which casts itself as a tea party group — ran harsh attack ads hitting Paul. Paul’s success comes shortly after tea party candidates defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) in the Utah primary, and tea party candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL) forced Charlie Crist out of the Republican Party.
Republican operatives orchestrated the tea party movement to lay the foundation for Republican electoral gains. However, the far right tea parties have been uncontrollable, demanding that Republican candidates support extreme positions like eliminating Social Security, Medicare, the Department of Education, and even the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Paul’s success has already sent ripples throughout the GOP establishment, with other ramifications in Kentucky and for upcoming GOP primaries:
– Todd Lally, an extremist who has said that President Obama wouldn’t be able to get a security clearance, road Paul’s coattails to defeat the establishment-backed candidate Jeff Reetz in the primary for Kentucky’s third congressional district. Reetz is a Pizza Hut franchise owner who received financial support from the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).
– Vauhn Ward, Sarah Palin endorsed Republican candidate in Idaho’s first congressional district, is quickly losing favor with the Republican primary voters. The tea party-backed candidate, State Rep. Raul Labrador, is surging in the polls against Ward. NRCC leaders like chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) has hosted a fundraiser for Ward.
– In Pennsylvania’s third district yesterday, voters chose tea party candidate Mike Kelly over NRCC-endorsed candidate Paul Huber.
– In the Colorado U.S. Senate race, far right tea party candidate Ken Buck is surging in the polls against Jane Norton, the longtime Republican politician chosen by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to run.
As ThinkProgress reported earlier this year, extreme tea party candidates have sought to purge Republican incumbents and handpicked GOP candidates in races all over the country.
Steele Says He Doesn?t Know Who The Republican ?Establishment? Is; Cavuto Responds: ?You, You, You!?
Citing Rand Paul’s victory in the GOP Kentucky Senate primary against establishment choice Trey Grayson last night, Neil Cavuto asked RNC Chairman Michael Steele today about “dysfunction in the Republican Party” as the GOP establishment clashes with the Tea Party. Steele denied tension, saying he told the Tea Party in Kentucky that “if we have […]
Citing Rand Paul’s victory in the GOP Kentucky Senate primary against establishment choice Trey Grayson last night, Neil Cavuto asked RNC Chairman Michael Steele today about “dysfunction in the Republican Party” as the GOP establishment clashes with the Tea Party. Steele denied tension, saying he told the Tea Party in Kentucky that “if we have a situation where your guy prevails, we’re backing that candidate, we’re very much looking to supporting Rand and if our guy prevails, we’d like the same support.”
Cavuto responded that Tea Partiers had told him that they view the GOP establishment negatively, leading Steele to reply, “I’m telling you as the national chairman of the party there’s no bad blood between the Republican National Committee and the Tea Parties.” Cavuto persisted, however, in claiming that there was tension between the “establishment” and the Tea Party. Steele responded by saying that he didn’t even know who the Republican establishment is, leading Cavuto to note that Steele is the establishment:
CAVUTO: Michael, the Tea Partiers didn’t like Senator Bennett.
STEELE: That’s fine.
CAVUTO: Fairly or not, they didn’t like him. The established Republican Party did.
STEELE: Ok, that may be. But wait a minute.
CAVUTO: I’m just saying that for you to say there is no angst between the two…
STEELE: Neil, don’t mix. Please stop.
CAVUTO: There clearly is.
STEELE: Please do not mix the Republican Party establishment, I don’t know who that is, by the way.
CAVUTO: You, you, you!
STEELE: With activists, I, no…
CAVUTO: You, you, you, you, you.
STEELE: Neil, have you been reading my press lately, I don’t think the last thing you could say about me is that I’m part of the establishment.
CAVUTO: Well, that’s true because everybody hates you. I’m kidding.
Watch it:
Steele hasn’t always been so confused about the fact that he is part of the Republican establishment. In fact, in an interview with Cavuto earlier this year, Steele explained how he was part of the establishment and not the Tea Party. “As I like to tell people — long before there was this big push on tea parties — if I wasn’t doing this job, I’d be out there with the tea partiers,” said Steele. Steele has also said that he is “the de facto leader of the Republican Party.”
