{"id":19669,"date":"2014-03-11T09:29:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T14:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=19669"},"modified":"2014-03-11T09:29:49","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T14:29:49","slug":"reports-of-the-tea-partys-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=19669","title":{"rendered":"Reports of the Tea Party’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been a lot of wishful thinking thumbsucker pieces from liberal media outlets proclaiming that the Tea Party is done, finished, a spent force. (Here’s an example<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

And indeed, those looking only at some top-line races in Texas (like Katrina Pierson’s failed attempt to take down Pete Sessions) might find tend to agree.<\/p>\n

However, a look at all the races (including many down-ballot) shows that the Tea Party is alive and well.<\/p>\n

Start at Lt. Governor. Dan Patrick says he followed the Ted Cruz blueprint and leaned heavily on the Tea Party<\/a>. \u201cIf you have a candidate who will work and at least enough resources to fund a statewide race then and you have the credentials, the tea party will bring you to victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s Michael Quinn Sullivan sees conservative victories up and down the ballot<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
  • The most liberal Republican in the Texas Senate lost.\n
  • Conservative ranks in the Senate are swelling.\n
  • Every House conservative won re-election (with re-enforcements coming from the open-seat races).\n
  • House incumbents affiliated with Speaker Joe Straus lost big.\n
  • Statewide races saw the TFR-backed candidates earning commanding leads going into run-offs.<\/blockquote>\n

    Sullivan goes on to cite Don Huffines defeating John Carona, Brooks Landgraf defeating Austin Keith, and the defeats of Straus allies Bennett Ratliff, Ralph Sheffield, Linda Harper-Brown, Diane Patrick and Lance Gooden.<\/p>\n

    This AP piece touts Tea Party success<\/a> in Texas, but is lamentably short on details. <\/p>\n

    Even liberal fossil Paul Burka says that<\/a> “If there was a clear winner in last night’s election, it was the tea party,” noting the defeats of Joe Straus allies Harper-Brown and Ratliff.<\/p>\n

    So too at the national level. The enthusiastic response to Sarah Palin’s speech<\/a> and other Tea Party favorites shows that the movement is far from dead.<\/p>\n

    Which is not to say huge obstacles don’t remain. The Tea Party still hasn’t built up their financial networks enough to reliably take on big-money incumbents, and even in Texas, previous Tea Party gains were insufficient to wrest the Speakership from Straus (who just spent $2,578,942.72<\/a> to retain a job that pays $7,200 a year). But the Tea Party movement is still very much alive and kicking, much to the chagrin of RINOS, democrats and the media…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There have been a lot of wishful thinking thumbsucker pieces from liberal media outlets proclaiming that the Tea Party is done, finished, a spent force. (Here’s an example.) And indeed, those looking only at some top-line races in Texas (like Katrina Pierson’s failed attempt to take down Pete Sessions) might find tend to agree. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":24,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,18,12],"tags":[2240,948,2239,825,2241,2009,2865,245,2861],"class_list":["post-19669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections","category-republicans","category-texas","tag-bennett-ratliff","tag-dan-patrick","tag-don-huffines","tag-joe-straus","tag-linda-harper-brown","tag-michael-quinn-sullivan","tag-republicans","tag-tea-party","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19669"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19696,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions\/19696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}