Any Republican or conservative who wants to dethrone the Democratic Party needs to be worried about the Tea Party Nation, a for profit company which isn’t going to do much more play the spoiler in critical elections across the country, or, worse yet, nominate unelectable conservatives to the GOP ticket.
A recent Rasmussen report shows just this:
| Suppose the Tea Party organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district or the Tea Party candidate from your district? | |
|---|---|
| Democratic | 36% |
| Tea Party | 17% |
| Republican | 25% |
| Not sure | 23% |
Thus, in a 3-way tussle, the Democrat would win comfortably if we equally divide up the “Not sure” votes.
Let’s look at the first scenario: an independent/third party run by Tea Partiers.
On November 3, 2009, Doug Hoffman, who could be considered the Tea Party candidate, lost to Bill Owens 46-48 with the rest going to Dede Scozzafava, the original Republican nominee. With just one conservative on the ticket, ideally a Republican, we would have won with by a comfortable 54-46.
Even Ron Paul, the so-called Tea Party Father, is threatened by 3 Tea Partiers in the primary this year. He will most likely win the primary and go on to get re-elected, the primary challenge will force him to spend money that would otherwise go to defeat his Democratic challenger.
Third party candidates who come in from the right or the center generally tend to destroy Republican chances of victory. Had Ross Perot not run in 1992, we might not have had Monicagate. Had Dean Berkley not run in 2008 in Minnesota, we would most likely not have Senator Al Franken sitting in Congress today.
As far as the second scenario is concerned, we have seen enough conservative candidates losing seats that would be safely in the red camp. One recent election that comes to mind is the 2008 contest for Maryland’s 1st CD. Moderate Wayne Gilchrist was ousted in the primary by conservative Andy Harris who went on to lose a seat Republicans had held for 18 years. When moderate Republican Jim Kolbe retired in 2006 and replaced by Randy Graff on the GOP ticket, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords won it handily.
Either way, the Tea Party Nation is not going to help unseat Obama’s party. The only thing it might end up doing up is giving an easy victory for the Democrats.
#1 by d.eris on February 10th, 2010
The simplest solution to this problem is for all Republicans to withdraw from races in which there is a real conservative third party alternative on the ballot. It only makes sense, if Republicans are interested in advancing the cause of conservatism, that is.
#2 by observer on February 10th, 2010
Well, are we trying to “advance the cause of conservatism” by re-electing Democrats? Conservatives haven’t won many swing seats (see scenario 2 above), but Republicans have.
NY-23 proves my point nicely. The 5% that went to Dede would not have gone to Hoffman, but to Owens. Without Dede, Owens would just have won more comfortably. Without Hoffman, on the other hand, we would have one vote less for Nancy Pelosi.
WA-8, which has large parts of liberal King County, has twice elected moderate Republican Dave Reichert who has won by the narrowest of margins. With a conservative on the ballot, that would be a blue seat.
Your solution would only entrench Democratic power in Washington.