Tea partyers find out the club has a cover
Perhaps even less surprising than the fairly convincing victories of establishment Republicans over what were identified as “tea party” challengers in Tuesday’s primaries was the collective “knew it all along” from the establishment media. Pleased as punch (no Sulzberger reference intended) with the “Empire Strikes Back” coinage for the grand theme of this year’s primary election coverage, some were left scrambling last week when a couple of conservative darlings emerged victorious in Nebraska and West Virginia. But by late last night, with strong showings by GOP vets like Mitch McConnell, Jack Kingston and Mike Simpson, political prognostication could safely return to its catch phrase.
Then, today, as if to say “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” comes CBS News poll numbers showing just 15 percent of Americans claim to support the “tea party movement” — the lowest tally since they began asking the question in early 2010. The tea party scored highest in November 2010, with 31 percent of respondents saying they were pro-tea.
CBS says even Republicans have lost interest — just 32 percent now say they support the tea party, down 10 points from February and off 23 points since their high-water mark in July 2010.
But are reports of the tea party’s demise exaggerated?
“Establishment Reigns in Republican Primaries,” said the digital front page headline on the New York Times; “Republicans keep tea party wing at bay,” reported the Los Angeles Times; “The tea party isn’t just losing; it’s losing badly,” declared the Washington Post. But dig a little deeper (some people call this “reading”), and the story becomes not so much about what the tea party lost, and more about what the establishment had.
Namely, more money, more power, and new, more rightwing rhetoric.
Oh, and more money.
Mo’ money, fewer problems
The establishment-aligned U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $4 million on McConnell, Kingston and Simpson (in GOP primaries for the Senate in Kentucky and Georgia, and for a House seat in Idaho, respectively). Most coverage was quick to point out the more than $3 million spent by McConnell’s conservative challenger, Matt Bevin, but fewer made it a point to mention that McConnell — the incumbent, who common practice would tell you should have to spend less — dumped something like $11 million of his $22 million war chest into this primary.
McConnell and Simpson won going away, Kingston won the right to face self-financing multi-millionaire David Perdue in a July runoff.
Meanwhile, traditional backers of non-traditional candidates, like Americans For Progress and the Club for Growth, despite promises of big things, were noticeably less profligate than in past cycles.
Roll out the barrel
The perceived dominance of President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Washington among dedicated GOP voters also allowed the establishment candidates to leverage the power of incumbency while still making noises like outsiders.
McConnell has been in the Senate nearly 30 years and has brought home so much bacon that Kentuckians joke half the state is named after him. Kingston, an 11-term member of the House of Representatives from Georgia’s First District, has used his position in the Republican leadership and his seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee to heavily reward his constituents in classic pork-barrel fashion.
Perdue, officially not a professional politician, still benefitted from widespread name recognition, thanks to his former-governor cousin Sonny Perdue.
Mike Simpson has represented Idaho in the House for better than 15 years, and used that seniority to his advantage on the stump and the fundraising circuit. This was Idaho’s most expensive House race to date, with most of the money spent by Simpson. Much was made of challenger Bryan Smith’s Club for Growth backing, but the anti-tax group quietly pulled out of Idaho after spending a cool half-mil early on.
And McConnell’s victory speech from Tuesday night was filled with references to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Neither the president or the Nevada Democrat is on the November ballot in Kentucky, but to hear McConnell talk, he is the spearhead of an insurgency against entrenched Washington elites.
How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
Perhaps most consequential, for the candidates, the voters and the country, is the way establishment Republicans didn’t so much bury the tea party as become them.
“Every establishment candidate ran like a tea party candidate,” said CNN’s Gloria Borger. “It's hard to tell the difference this time around, because they had a uniting factor in opposing Obamacare but also united on issues like immigration and trade and climate change. The establishment Republican Party ran to the right this time."
This has been true not just for this week’s primaries, but for the way the GOP has positioned itself since the last election. One need look no further than House Speaker John Boehner’s utter paralysis on immigration legislation — not just comprehensive reform, any legislation — or Florida Senator and presidential wannabe Marco Rubio’s rhetorical toe dances on immigration, drug use and climate change to know that no establishment Republican leaves the house in the morning without checking his or her reflection in a still glass of tea.
Through a glass darkly
So, as previously noted, the empire may have emerged victorious in name, but it is not because they had policies or even atmospherics that differentiated them from their insurgent rivals.
In fact, another point in the CBS poll makes clear who the real winners — or, more to the point, real losers — were this primary season.
Forty-five percent of Americans — a record high in CBS News polls — now say they agree with the statement "It makes no real difference which party controls Congress, things go on just as they did before."
That still leaves a slim majority that says who’s in control matters, but the growing cynicism about and distaste with national politics owes much to the anti-government rhetoric of the tea party diaspora, and serves the purposes of rabble-rousers and establishment interests, alike. The fewer people invested in the outcome, the further a dollar spent in a campaign goes. And that favors moneyed interests on every side of the right’s divide.
And for that, the GOP establishment can thank the insurgents … just as Mitch McConnell did Tuesday night: “Matt [Bevin] brought a lot of passion and tenacity to this race and he made me a stronger candidate.”
The tea party-backed candidates may not be looking at a long, hot summer on the stump, but when they eye the establishment candidates that are on the November ballot, it will be much like looking in a mirror.
They may feel left out, but are they sure they would want to belong to any club that would have them as a member?
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