The Tea Party: Republican help or hindrance

Judging from the newspapers it appears that the Tea Party candidates did a lot better than expected than the conventional Republican candidates in the primaries.

How much of an impact is that going to have. Will the Republican Party swing behind a Tea Party candidate in Novemeber, because it's still better than a Democrat in power or will they sit on the sidelines and watch the Tea Party stand and fall on its own merits.

How pleased are the Democrats by these wins. Would they prefer to be going up against them than a Republican and does it mean their losses in November will not be as great as some have predicted.

What are the chances that the Tea Party can pull it off, even without the financial muscle of the Republican party or are they still a novelty act that will lose badly when time comes to vote.

Finally, does this swing towards the Tea Party show a general swing to the Right in America or just those who follow the Republicans and does this mean they will wind up ceding any centre ground to the Democrats.

In NY for the Governor's Seat I think it will have an adverse affect. Several reasons, the general election will have a much higher turn out and the losing mainstream Republican did win the nomination for the conservative party and thus will be on the ticket.

NY State had over 4 million votes in last Presidential Election. The Tea Party Winner got around 270,000 votes in the primary to win. I believe in the end he has made the job of the Democratic candidate, the son of a fairly popular governor, a lot easier. On the other hand the losing Repub. is a non-charismatic idiot that can't really run a campaign and probably would have got his ass kicked so maybe it does not hurt the Republicans at all that the tea-bagger won a primary that most Republicans did not bother to vote in.

The Tea Party has not exactly been trouncing regular Republican candidates in primaries, and this stuff about anti-incumbent mood is in general really overexaggerated.

But overall the Tea Party has helped them enormously. They really are creating an enthusiasm that the Republican party doesn't rationally deserve, and the Dems with their usual dopey failure to message strategically are, naturally, throwing away races that we could have won.

I think it will hurt them in the long run; the NRSC has declined to support at least on Tea Partier (O'Donnell), and they aren't getting the kinds of endorsements one might expect.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/20...ight-Thread-#8

Jim, considering that the papers here have been smearing the incumbent Democratic party governor since he failed to anoint Caroline Kennedy, mostly for total BS, and that Cuomo had been getting positive press long before he announced that he was running for governor, I don't think there's ever been any chance that anyone but Cuomo would be getting the governor's seat this election. I'm just disgusted that anyone could vote for Palladino - who remains an excellent poster child to counter the claims that the racists in the Tea Party are just a fringe.

As for Lazio, while he'll be on the Conservative party line, I doubt he's going to get more than 5% of the vote. I can't imagine his share of the vote total being significant in any way.

However that's just one race, with a figure who is almost as well known (at least within the state) as, say, Sarah Palin.