Tea Party Wave?

[demwing]

I just read here on DU that America doesn't really want Progressive Candidates, and the evidence presented was that we all voted for Tea Party lunatics in 2010.

This is a pretty typical assumption - that the Tea Party had a high level of success in 2010, but I'm here to tell ya that this is pure grade horse shit.

In the Senate, 5 Tea Party candidates won office, and 5 lost.

5 WON
PA- Pat Toomey
KY- Rand Paul
FL- Marco Rubio
WI- Ron Johnson
UT- Mike Lee

5 LOST
AK- Joe Miller
CO- Ken Buck
DE- Christine O’Donnell
NV- Sharron Angle
WV- John Raese

Wow, looks like a 50% success rate. Not bad!

Except there were a few more races in the Senate, where either the Tea Party didn't win the primary, or didn't care to try, so the real numbers are a little more revealing - of the 39 Senate races in 2010, Tea Party candidates won a total of 13%.

Nice wave, bro.

But Dems held the Senate, right? What about the House? The Tea Party swept the House, or so we're told

Well, 43 House candidates for the Tea Party won, and 87 lost. A full 33% of those races went to the Tea Party - that's considerably better than any 3rd party has performed in the country...well, ever!

Tea Party in the HOUSE

43 WON
AR-1 Rick Crawford
AR-2 Tim Griffin
AZ-1 Paul Gosar
AZ-5 David Schweikert
FL-2 Steve Southerland
FL-22 Allen West
FL-24 Sandra Adams
GA-9 Tom Graves
ID-1 Raul Labrador
IL-10 Robert Dold
IL-11 Adam Kinzinger
IL-14 Randy Hultgren
IL-17 Bobby Schilling
IL-8 Joe Walsh
IN-3 Marlin Stutzman
IN-9 Todd Young
LA-3 Jeff Landry
MI-1 Dan Benishek
MI-3 Justin Amash
MI-7 Tim Walberg
MN-6 Michelle Bachmann
MO-4 Vicky Hartzler
NC-2 Renee Ellmers
NH-1 Frank Guinta
NV-3 Joe Heck
NY-13 Michael Grimm
NY-20 Christopher Gibson
NY-25 Ann Marie Buerkle
OH-1 Steve Chabot
OH-15 Steven Stivers
OH-16 Jim Renacci
OH-6 Bill Johnson
SC-1 Tim Scott
SC-3 Jeff Duncan
SC-4 Trey Gowdy
SC-5 Mick Mulvaney
TN-4 Scott DesJarlais
TX-17 Bill Flores
TX-27 Blake Farenthold
VA-9 H. Morgan Griffith
WI-7 Sean Duffy
WI-8 Reid Ribble
WV-1 David McKinley

87 LOST
AR-4 Beth Anne Rankin
AZ-4 Janet Contreras
AZ-7 Ruth McClung
AZ-8 Jesse Kelly
CA- 11 David Harmer
CA-10 Gary Clift
CA-16 Daniel Sahagun
CA-18 Michael Berryhill
CA-23 Tom Watson
CA-27 Mark Reed
CA-29 John Colbert
CA-30 Charles Wilkerson
CA-37 Star Parker
CA-43 Scott Folkens
CA-47 Van Tran
CA-5 Paul A. Smith
CA-51 Nick Popaditch
CA-6 Jim Judd
CA-7 Rick Tubbs
CA-8 John Dennis
CA-9 Gerald Hashimoto
CT-3 Jerry Labriola
DE-1 Glen Urquhart
FL-3 Michael Yost
GA-4 Lisbeth "Liz" Carter
GA-5 Fenn Little
HI-1 Charles Djou
HI-2 John Willoughby
IL-12 Teri Newman
IL-5 David Ratowitz
IL-9 Joel Pollak
IN-1 Mark Leyva
IN-2 Jackie Walorski
KY-3 Todd Lally
MA-1 Bill Gunn
MA-10 Jeff Perry
MA-2 Tom Wesley
MA-3 Marty Lamb
MA-4 Sean Bielat
MA-7 Gerry Dembrowski
MD-4 Robert Broadus
MD-5 Charles Lollar
ME-2 Jason Levesque
MI-12 Don Volaric
MI-13 John Hauler
MI-15 Rob Steele
MI-9 Rocky Raczkowski
MO-3 Ed Martin
MO-5 Jacob Turk
MS-2 Bill Marcy
NC-11 Jeff Miller
NC-13 William Randall
NC-4 William Lawson
NC-8 Harold Johnson
NJ-1 Dale Glading
NJ-6 Anna Little
NJ-8 Roland Straten
NM-1 Jonathan Barela
NM-3 Tom Mullins
NY-17 Anthony Mele
NY-2 John Gomez
NY-21 Theodore Danz
NY-22 George Phillips
NY-27 Leonard Roberto
NY-28 Jill Rowland
NY-5 James Milano
OH-10 Peter Corrigan
OH-13 Tom Ganley
OH-17 Jim Graham
OH-9 Rich Iott
OR-3 Delia Lopez
OR-4 Art Robinson
PA-12 Tim Burns
PA-14 Melissa Haluszczak
PA-4 Keith Rothfus
SC-6 Jim Pratt
TN-9 Charlotte Bergmann
TX-20 Clayton Trotter
TX-25 Donna Campbell
TX-28 Bryan Underwood
TX-30 Stephen Broden
UT-2 Morgan Philpot
VA-11 Keith Fimian
VA-3 Chuck Smith
VT-1 Paul Beaudry
WA-1 James Watkins
WA-2 John Koster

Hey, Ross Perot only took 19% in 1992, and Teddy Roosevelt only gained 28% in 1912. Smells like victory, right?

Well, it smells like something, alright. As with the Senate, the surface numbers are inflated because we are not looking at the races where the Tea Party never made it to, or past the primary.

There were 43 Tea Party wins, true, but in 2010 there were a total of 435 House seats up for a vote. Tea Party candidates took just a hair's width less than 10% of those seats.

The Tea Party success is overinflated. They are not even a true third party, just a faction withing the Republican tent, but like Conservatives have done for years, they assume every win, no matter how small, to be a overwhelming mandate for their lunatic policies. Props to that philosophy - with this strategy, they seem to get exactly what they want from every negotiation. I'm being generous by calling this behavior a strategy - it assumes they know they have no mandate, but realize that to get what they want, they have to act as if the world agrees with them, and is encouraging them (my fear is that this behavior is less a "strategy" and more a "delusion").

Maybe, just maybe, the Dems should stop trying to adopt rightwing policies, and adopt rightwing strategy. We hold the Senate and the Presidency, and our poll numbers are superior to theirs.

Can we act like we own the whole damned world, and start getting a little bit of what Progressives want?

Pretty Please?

[FSogol]

1. Thank God that Keith Fimian (VA-11) lost. What a tool. n/t

[demwing]

13. I thank god that each of those 92 MFers got sent home

each on of them, there were some that were just jumping on the Crazy Train, but there were others, like Angle, that were just dangerous human beings.

[demwing]

14. self delet, triplicate post /nt

[demwing]

15. self delet, triplicate post /nt

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Excellent summation!

[livetohike]

3. Great job demwing

Thanks for listing this :hi:.

[lame54]

4. Zero tea-partiers won...

they all ran and were elected as republicans

The was no T next to the names on the ballots - Just R's

A true 3rd party runs as their own party - they don't try to hi-jack another party

[demwing]

5. yeah, at best, they're a Caucus, not a party

either way, their success is inflated

[no_hypocrisy]

6. And there's a chance the next crop of Tea Party candidates will be stealth

for the coming election cycle. Their popularity has lessened. Campaigning as generic republicans may be their way to win primaries and elections.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. Thanks so much for doing all this research. Point well taken! nt

[demwing]

9. love to take credit, but can't

The list of Tea Party candidate was compiled by a MSM source (can't recall who) leading into the 2010 election. I saved as a spreadsheet, and went back later to fill in the results.

[fadedrose]

8. Good Job

R

[Pryderi]

10. What your looking for is the Donner Party Democrats/Face Ripper Monkies. Bill Maher Video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lJXlaoAc4U

[demwing]

11. Holy shit, that was the funniest Bill Maher bit I can remember

thank you a thousand times :rofl:

[OHdem10]

12. America is having second thoghts about Tea Party and there

is a lot of buyers remorse. Republican Party has
been hurt by Tea Party. Check their falling polls.

[peace frog]

16. Yep, "Wave" it buh-bye

The teabaggers will be re-absorbed back into the John Birch Society where they belong. So long, suckers!