Does anybody remember the fervor with which the conservative grass-roots movement, all over the country, rallied in the last days of the campaign to elect Scott Brown to the Senate? Groups organized in nearly every state to make calls to Massachusetts, in support of Brown. Efforts paid off, and Massachusetts elected a Republican to the Senate for the first time in a very long time. Whether or not it turned out to be the saving “conservative” grace that most were hoping for is a debate for another time. But I cannot help but question, with the significance of the 2010 midterm elections to the conservative movement, where has the fire in the belly gone as it relates to support for gaining control of the Senate?
While most are expecting a take over of the House, Rasmussen reported, yesterday, that with 6 states in the toss-up category, Republicans would be two seats behind the Democrats gaining control of the Senate. Given what we know about the TeaParty and its strong advocacy and drive to support new conservative candidates, I cannot understand the lack of last-minute push, at the grassroots level, to get behind candidates in an effort to push as many over the top as possible.
Tea Party extremists who haven’t learned yet to moderate their language – and earnest true believers like Paul Ryan who think they can convince America that what’s bad for them is good for them – have complicated the Republican problem.
Perhaps an even more serious question to ask is, “Why has the GOP been MIA in campaigns for O’Donnell in Delaware, for example?” Progressive Nation suggests the differences between the two is a power struggle in which the Republicans want to continue to control the room and the message without influence from “… extremists who haven’t learned yet to moderate their language.” With the obvious power struggle that continues between the Republican Party and the TeaParty movement, one can only hope that TeaParty conservatives will continue to hold true to their message, insist on conservative values in their leadership, and support them in the election process.
If you ask me “the Republican problem” isn’t the existence of “extremist” in their ranks, but rather the lack of strategist. It only takes one chamber to stop the legislative process. While it will be great to take the House, the Senate would have been better since it has the additional powers of confirmation and filibuster.
Of course it is a numbers game and only a third of the senators were up for re-election. But one can help but ponder what could have been had the party thrown all its money and energy into the senatorial races rather than spreading it out over hundreds of Congressional seats.