Tea Party is Slowly Killing Republicans

15 Comments

by: Colorado Pols

We’ve written several times in this space that the Tea Party movement of 2010 may end up irreparably damaging the Republican Party. As a new poll out of Florida indicates, the damage is already being done. From The Miami Herald:

Beware, Florida Republicans: The tea party movement that swept you into office in 2010 could cost you the next election.

That’s the takeaway message from Republican pollster and consultant Alex Patton, who conducted a recent survey showing that, by a 2:1 ratio, registered Florida voters said the tea party movement did not represent their views.

The sentiment against the tea party is significantly higher among self-described independent voters, who swing elections in Florida and who looked unfavorably on the tea party by 3-to-1, the poll showed. Only Republican voters favored the tea party movement, with 68 percent in support and less than 20 percent opposed.

“There’s a real danger to Republican candidates,” said Patton, a founder of the Gainesville-based War Room Logistics polling firm.

“If, in a primary race statewide, a candidate hugs the tea party too tightly in order to win the primary,” he said, “it significantly causes you issues in a general election.”…

…The survey’s results concerning the tea party in Florida mirror an April USA Today/Gallup poll that showed 47 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the tea party – an increase of 7 percentage points in just over a year. Meanwhile, favorable impressions of the tea party nationwide have declined 6 percentage points to 33 percent.

The Herald story goes on to quote Tea Party leaders in the state crowing about how their movement is “growing,” which is precisely the problem for Republicans. The bigger the Tea Party becomes, the more that Republicans have to pander to them in a Primary…which makes them even weaker in a General Election where courting Independent voters is vital. Unless the Tea Party eventually grows large enough to encompass a majority of voters — which is extremely unlikely — this is a sobering trend for the GOP.

15 thoughts on “Tea Party is Slowly Killing Republicans”

Middle of the Road says:

June 23, 2011 at 9:26 pm

Ahhh, ha ha.

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1. Irish Patti says:
  
  June 23, 2011 at 9:42 pm
  
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Progressive Promoter says:

June 23, 2011 at 10:34 pm

Check out the drama as it’s unfolding down in El Paso County: http://www.csindy.com/colorado/anarchy-in-the-gop/Content?oid=2281131

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1. DaftPunk says:
  
  June 23, 2011 at 11:08 pm
  
  How’d you get that link to come back to this page?
  
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  1. Phoenix Rising says:
    
    June 24, 2011 at 12:13 am
    
    The text of the link and the link itself are separate.
    
    If you type <a href=”URL1″>URL2</a>, you will have something similar to what the parent poster created – a link that visually shows URL2, but goes to URL1.
    
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    1. DaftPunk says:
      
      June 24, 2011 at 8:33 pm
      
      You seem to know more about this than me.
      
      How do I embed a picture. BBCode doesn’t seem to work (or maybe it’s a workplace internet security thing.)
      
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      1. Phoenix Rising says:
        
        June 24, 2011 at 10:56 pm
        
        (plus a few shortcuts)
        
        <a href=”URL” target=”_blank”>
        
        <img src=”URL” alt=”a_title” title=”a_title” width=”300″ />
        
        </a>
        
        Substitute whatever width you need, but realize it still has to fit within the boundaries of your comment, so don’t go too big…
        
        The <a> wrapper is so that when you click on it, it opens in a new window/tab – useful for having a larger version of the picture available.
        
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Diogenesdemar says:

June 23, 2011 at 11:21 pm

slow and painful is completely appropriate. In this case, however, I kind of wish they’d just hurry up and finish the job.

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MetaData says:

June 24, 2011 at 2:47 am

The world is full of stupid, racist people. The world also has very powerful economic interests. As far as I can see, the TP-ers are nothing more than stupid and racist tools of the Republican Party.

The Republican Party lies, cheats and propagandizes to whip up Tea Party excitement. But, the underlying purpose is a campaign to take back the Government for the super-wealthy. Why? So they can give the super-wealthy Trillion dollar tax cuts, and cut a trillion dollars from the middle class, and pay for it by borrowing a trillion from the Chinese.

The Republican Party Hates America, and is willing to destroy the economy to come back to power.

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ClubTwitty says:

June 24, 2011 at 4:23 am

The poll also found Ryan is now the nation’s third most disliked Republican, with net unfavorable ratings that trail only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But more than half surveyed said they have no opinion of the Wisconsin Republican.

…The poll found that 40 percent of Americans believe President Barack Obama has a better vision for the nation’s economic future, while 37 percent said Republicans do. More than half – 51 percent – said “we should see” how the national health care law works, while 35 percent want it repealed.

And 49 percent surveyed approve of Obama’s overall job performance, while his approval rating on terrorism alone was measured at 69 percent.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s…

Republicans between Ryan Rock and electorate hard place

Across the Senate election map, in swing state after swing state, the House Budget Committee chairman’s plan for overhauling the popular entitlement program is emerging as a serious point of tension, a pick-your-poison proposition, forcing GOP candidates to choose between the narrow dictates of conservative primary voters and the imperatives of the broader general election.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s…

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1. BlueCat says:
  
  June 24, 2011 at 8:11 am
  
  because it represents such different aspects of the GOPT. You could hardly find more dissimilar figures than supposedly cerebral think tanky Newt and anti-book larnin’ Sarah. Then there’s Ryan, who was supposed to be the serious conservative grown-up and potential serious presidential candidate. It’s as if someone asked, what do you want in a Republican? An established beltway conservative, a snappy, shiny Tea party celebrity or a champion of the Norquist ideology and the public’s answer is “none of the above.” Interesting.
  
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DavidThi808 says:

June 24, 2011 at 7:21 am

With an opening like this does Obama and the other Democratic leaders take this opportunity and use it to sell a better alternative?

No, because that would work.

Instead they’re in quiet meetings with the Republicans negotiating over the size of the budget cuts on programs for the poor and tax cuts for the rich.

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Muhammad Ali Hasan says:

June 24, 2011 at 1:10 pm

…I think it’s a little premature to declare the Tea Party as a failure within the great state of Florida, considering that their main boy, Marco Rubio, won the Senate election in a landslide, as well as Rick Scott, who has quite the checkered background when it comes to corporate business

Thus, based on Rick Scott and Marco Rubio’s success, again, it’s premature to call the Tea Party a failure in Florida

HOWEVER — Scott was beneficiary of Rubio’s, and due purely to his (Rubio’s) skin color and name (it disgusts me that Rubio supports Arizona 1070 – a fellow Latino, nonetheless), I think Marco Rubio was given a pass and not seen as “extreme” as other Republican candidates, in the eyes of moderate Florida voters

In that regard, Latino/minority candidates like Susanna Martinez, Sandoval (of Nevada) and Rubio are the TEA PARTY’S best friends, but in order to endear oneself to the Tea Party movement, as a minority, one HAS to support Arizona 1070-like laws, as Martinez and Rubio have both done

If the Tea Party can find enough Latinos and minorities who are willing to sell their souls to the devil, then perhaps they will actually succeed – but I doubt that happens – and ultimately, the Tea Party will go extinct, but the numbers of proof won’t manifest until 2012

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1. Colorado Pols says:
  
  June 24, 2011 at 7:52 pm
  
  The point that we’ve always made is that the Tea Party will ultimately destroy the Republican Party as it weeds out moderates from the GOP.
  
  We’ve acknowledged that the Tea Party was a significant force in 2010, and they continue to have a major influence on elections. But within the next couple of cycles, they’ll have made it impossible for a moderate Republican to win a Primary — which will forever handicap the GOP in a General Election.
  
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  1. Muhammad Ali Hasan says:
    
    June 25, 2011 at 2:27 am
    
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