Republican primaries show decline of the tea party

The Republican Party of the 21st century has reached a crossroads in 2014. Either the party will follow the well-trod centrist path of established political actors such as House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky or the party will explore a fresh road to the right behind the tea party champions of 2010, such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah.

If the results of June 3 primaries in three wholly distinct states — California, Mississippi and Iowa — are any indication, they point to a surprising and unexpected choice by the national electorate. The Republican Party will travel its time-tested traditional road, choosing cautious, parochial, centrist candidates. Meanwhile, the tea party faction of 2010 has already evolved from rabble rouser to a funny-hat-wearing partisan standing inside the GOP’s big tent.

In California the open primary protocol meant that there was no Republican primary. Instead, the overwhelmingly popular three-term Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, competed against a field of Republican and unaffiliated challengers. Only the top two finishers advance to the November ballot.

The California Republican Party establishment of moderates, represented by Mitt Romney, Condoleezza Rice and Darrell Issa, chose the young and soft-spoken political rookie Neel Kashkari, a man who came to California politics via the unlikely path of Goldman Sachs, the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush and Secretary Henry Paulson and the famous Orange County–based financial enterprise PIMCO. 

The California tea party challenged Kashkari with a strident state assemblyman, Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks, whose local reputation was built on anti-immigrant remarks and actions, including founding an armed group to patrol the border with Mexico.

The polls showed Donnelly with a commanding lead over Kashkari right up until the final weekend. Kashkari’s pro-abortion-rights and pro-immigration-reform positions, along with the fact that he voted for Barack Obama in 2008, left him vulnerable to attack. Donnelly pressed his seeming advantage by accusing Kashkari not only of being a RINO (Republican in name only) but also of being in favor of Shariah — a bizarre ad hominem attack flung at a man who was born and raised a Hindu in Ohio.

I spoke with Kashkari more than once in the final week of the campaign. He was genuinely concerned that his voice was getting drowned out by Donnelly’s unacceptable remarks. Kashkari’s come-from-behind victory shows that the GOP establishment has learned how to adjust and prevail over the tea party’s politics of disruption during the last two election cycles.

In Mississippi, a blood red Republican state, the tea party fared better than in California but was not overwhelmingly successful in its challenge to six-term Sen. Thad Cochran, 76. Challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s campaign was built around assertions that he would be a more trustworthy fiscal and social conservative than the incumbent, using insipid rallying cries such as “Repeal ‘Obamacare!’” and “Cut wasteful spending!” in campaign videos.

McDaniel enjoyed great momentum and the savvy spending of tea party allies such as the anti-tax Club for Growth until a bizarre turn of events saw so-called McDaniel campaign volunteers nabbed while breaking into the nursing home where Cochran’s long-disabled wife lives in order to photograph the unsuspecting woman. The event remains under investigation, but McDaniel badly handled his explanation of what he knew and when he knew it about the prank. The dirty trick, if that’s what it was, became the center of a Cochran attack video.

Cochran’s unanimous support by the Republican establishment, led by his friend the former governor and nationally respected politico Haley Barbour, provided enough weight for the primary vote to end in a first-round no decision, with McDaniel outpolling Cochran by 1,400 votes out of more than 300,000. Because neither candidate cleared the 50 percent threshold, there will be a runoff on June 24. 

The state’s tea party is boasting of its ability to turn out more passionate voters. Neither Cochran nor his supporters are showing new energy. Still, even in Mississippi there was no clear mandate for the tea party’s anti-government mantra in a state where the only debate is shades of extreme anti-Washington, anti-Democratic, anti-Obama rhetoric.

The Iowa senatorial results show an even more mixed result for the once commanding voices of the tea party. Iowa has voted for the Democratic progressive Obama in the last two presidential cycles and leans Democratic even in midterms. The Senate primary was easily won by state Sen. Joni Ernst, a lively military veteran who emphasized her farm roots and conservative values while demonstrating star power in what she called an “edgy” video that opens with her saying, “I grew up castrating hogs, so I know how to cut pork.”

Most important, Ernst was not the most textbook tea party voice in the field of five. What worked for her was a construction that would have been treated as compromising in the tea party cycles of 2010 and ’12: She was endorsed in person by Romney, the Chamber of Commerce and tea party favorite and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The Kashkari and Ernst wins and the Mississippi tie vote are strong evidence that the tea party turmoil in the GOP is in a slow-rolling decline. While 2010 saw the raw energy of the tea party, like an ingénue actor who chews scenery on command, four years later, the movement has evolved into a box to be checked for enterprising newcomers such as Mississippi’s McDaniel, a political tyro who would succeed in any era. 

By the presidential cycle of 2016, it is likely that the Republican establishment of moderates and conservatives will cheerfully embrace the tea party alumni line like prodigals come home at last.