Today POLITICO has a lengthly article out about the lack of success by teabagger candidates. Basically, it's three long pages of wondering why, oh why:
... success at the ballot box has been elusive for these grass-roots conservative activists if not entirely nonexistent. Speculation abounds as to why teabagger candidates have been complete failures around the country: * Some observers raise the question of whether the tea party crowd is cut out to achieve electoral success or whether it is more influential as a more radical, guerrilla movement. * The main reason seems to be a predictable growing pain of any new political movement. While tea party partisans have proved effective in organizing rallies and protests, they have yet to show they possess the bread-and-butter on-the-ground campaign skills it takes to win races ... * Then there is the question of fundraising ... * But the tea party electoral losses are also indicative of a broader challenge: Tea party leaders must find a way to define its platform and communicate to mainstream voters just what it stands for. * As they seek to dislodge establishment Republican candidates in primaries across the country, tea party-inspired contenders are facing yet another challenge: fractured fields of like-minded, grass-roots conservative hopefuls that result in a splitting of the tea party vote. ... but the most obvious explanation isn't explored. That the teabagger "movement" is nothing but a collection of right-wing extremists who were initially given a platform by Fox News and that the rest of the sheep-like traditional media ran with. The traditional media was happy to ignore the hundreds of thousands who protested against the Iraq War or for immigration reform, but a few thousand lunatics, that the Republican Party gleefully leeched onto, screamed at town hall meetings and suddenly, a movement was born? Pfft. POLITICO article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34041.html#ixzz0hd1Wjlkg via: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/8/844178/-Another-Possible-Explanation
