So yeah, the Tea Party hilariously screwed the GOP last night.

[Oakvale]

They allowed Democrats to win the following seats:

Delaware - Well, yeah.
Nevada - Reid hilariously wins.
Colorado - Bennet appears to have it locked up.

And, perhaps even more importantly, forced the Republicans to spend obscene amounts of money on states like Kentucky - even though they eventually won, albeit by virtue of Conway self-destructing - and Alaska (!), which should have been the safest of the safe.

Not to mention a few House seats that could have been competitive...

If I was a Republican I'd be royally pissed at these morons. Sure, you guys had a good night, but it could have been so much better without the teabagger influence.

BTW, don't give me the argument that the Tea Party created the enthusiasm which so obviously helped the Republicans last night - as far as I can tell, the Tea Party is a product of said enthusiasm, not the other way around.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

From Politico:


Democratic House incumbents who have been defeated

Rep. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.)
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.)
Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.)
Rep. Betsy Markey (D-Colo.)
Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.)
Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.)
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.)
Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.)
Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.)
Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho)
Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.)
Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.)
Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.)
Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.)
Rep. Mark Schauer (D-Mich.)
Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.)
Rep. Travis Childers (D-Miss.)
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.)
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.)
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.)
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter  (D-N.H.)
Rep. John Adler (D-N.J.)
Rep. Harry Teague (D-N.M.)
Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.)
Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Michael McMahon (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.)
Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D)
Rep. John Boccieri (D-Ohio)
Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio)
Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio)
Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio)
Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-Ohio)
Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa)
Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.)
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.)
Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.)
Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C)
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.)
Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.)
Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas)
Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas)
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.)
Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Va.)
Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wisc.)

Republican House incumbents who have been defeated

Rep. Charles Djou (R-Hawaii)
Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.)

Democratic-held open seats that have switched parties

Arkansas 1st (Rep. Marion Berry)
Arkansas 2nd (Rep. Vic Snyder)
Indiana 8th (Rep. Brad Ellsworth)
Kansas 3rd (Rep. Dennis Moore)
Louisiana 3rd (Rep. Charlie Melancon)
Michigan 1st (Rep. Bart Stupak)
New Hampshire 2nd (Rep. Paul Hodes)
New York 29th (vacant)
Pennsylvania 7th (Rep. Joseph Sestak)
Tennessee 6th (Rep. Bart Gordon)
Tennessee 8th (Rep. John Tanner)
Washington 3rd (Rep. Brian Baird)
West Virginia 1st (Rep. Alan Mollohan)
Wisconsin 7th (Rep. David Obey)

Republican-held open seats that have switched parties

Delaware at large (Rep. Mike Castle)

Democratic Senate incumbents who have been defeated

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.)
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.)

Republican Senate incumbents who have been defeated



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44576.html#ixzz14ENTAuMg

[edit]I would have added in all the local races and Governor races, but you still would miss the point.

I'm certain the GOP wants to be screwed like this every election......

[Vepres]

Let's see, Republicans gained as many seats as Democrats did in 2006, and gained more seats in one cycle than Democrats did in two very good cycles.

Sure, relative to predictions, they fell short in the Senate, but keep this in perspective. It was a huge wave.

And, as I have said over and over, this year would have likely been an average midterm without the Tea Party.

[??????????]

Biggest swing election since 1928, what a failure!

[anvi]

It's certainly true that the TEA party nominees screwed the GOP out of the possibility of taking the Senate.  They did win a pretty impressive number of races in both the House and Senate for their first time out though (a fact I take no comfort in).

I'm really curious to see how the GOP deals with TEA party reps and senators in Congress.  I wonder if they will actually be the thorn in the party's side they promise to be, like the Blue Dogs are for Democrats, or whether they'll just go along.  The GOP claims that its big concerns are tax cuts and reducing the deficit, but we all know they only care about the first of these.  The TEA party is, as its name suggests, primarily concerned with taxes, so I suspect they'll shrug off the deficit concerns when it comes time to pull out their voting cards too.  But we'll see, it'll be interesting.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Biggest swing election since 1928, what a failure!

I'm bothered by the denial.  A few red avatars here (brittain comes to mind) are being realistic.......the others are spinning this more than a golf ball from a Tiger Woods wedge shot.

[??????????]

It's certainly true that the TEA party nominees screwed the GOP out of the possibility of taking the Senate.  It looks like they lost more races than they won in the House, but they did win a pretty impressive number of races for their first time out (a fact I take no comfort in).

I'm really curious to see how the GOP deals with TEA party reps and senators in Congress.  I wonder if they will actually be the thorn in the party's side they promise to be, like the Blue Dogs are for Democrats, or whether they'll just go along.  The GOP claims that its big concerns are tax cuts and reducing the deficit, but we all know they only care about the first of these.  The TEA party is, as its name suggests, primarily concerned with taxes, so I suspect they'll shrug off the deficit concerns when it comes time to pull out their voting cards too.  But we'll see, it'll be interesting.

Yes, most of the newly elected members were there when the Repubics went nuts with the deficit.

[SPC]

The only Senate races I cared about were Kentucky, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Alaska. At the rate that things are going, only Paul and Lee are going to be in the Senate, which is disappointing since polls had all five winning.

[Oakvale]

I don't see why it's "spin" to state the obvious - that more mainstream nominees would have won handily in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado.

[SPC]

I don't see why it's "spin" to state the obvious - that more mainstream nominees would have won handily in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado.

Given how inaccurate the polls were in Nevada, Sue Lowden would have had to be leading by over 9% to have won against Reid. The polls taken after the chicken gaffe showed her leading by low single digits at best.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I don't see why it's "spin" to state the obvious - that more mainstream nominees would have won handily in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado.

Ok, let's pretend you are positive of those results, then take away KY & FL.........so what would one more Senate seat have accomplished?

Did you forget the House, the Governors, State Legislatures......yep, screwed, blued and tattooed.

[??????????]

I don't see why it's "spin" to state the obvious - that more mainstream nominees would have won handily in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado.

Ok, then take away KY & FL.........so what would one more Senate seat have accomplished?

Appropriate SN.

[Linus Van Pelt]

I'm no fan of the Tea Party (to put it mildly), but this idea that they're kind of means-end irrational just because they botched a couple of senate races strikes me as very misguided.

There's nothing internally incoherent about thinking that that the establishment of both parties is sufficiently broken and the political culture in need of change that it's worth losing a couple of seats in the short term to bring about more substantive change. The same applies to third parties in general.

Or, shorter: there's a lot more to politics than who wins the next election.

I mean, do you really think that the Tea Party's goals would be that much better served by having  Mike Castle and an unafraid-of-being-primaried Olympia Snowe going around negotiating "deals" that the Washington press would love but both bases would hate whenever Obama and Boehner were in a deadlock?

[Frink]

Did they "screw" the Republicans? No. They just came out on top of their biggest wave election since 1994.

Did they not win the Senate because of them? Debatable. O'Donnell probably screwed them in Delaware, but that's one race out of many.. that they won.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Wait a second, here.  I too thought the GOP left Senate seats on the table, but the fact is the GOP didn’t have good candidates because 2010 wasn’t supposed to be a good Senate year for the GOP and many of their top candidates chose not to run.

NV:  as was stated, Lowden probably wouldn’t have fared much better than Angle after her gaffe.   This race was winnable with someone like Thune/Pence.

DE:  sending a lesson to the remaining GOP RINOs was worth magnitudes more than having RINO Castle in the Senate.  This race was winnable with someone like Thune/Pence.

So, the problem for the GOP in NV/DE was simply lack of good conservative candidates along the lines of Thune/Pence.  IT IS A RECRUITING PROBLEM.  Same problem in KY, even though it was a victory.  But, I think the GOP will bring its A Team for 2012 Senate, as recruiting should be much easier.

(I don’t know enough about the primaries in CA or CO to comment)

I just want the GOP to apply these lessons towards 2012.

[bullmoose88]

Wait a second, here.  I too thought the GOP left Senate seats on the table, but the fact is the GOP didn’t have good candidates because 2010 wasn’t supposed to be a good Senate year for the GOP and many of their top candidates chose not to run.

NV:  as was stated, Lowden probably wouldn’t have fared much better than Angle after her gaffe.   This race was winnable with someone like Thune/Pence.

DE:  sending a lesson to the remaining GOP RINOs was worth magnitudes more than having RINO Castle in the Senate.  This race was winnable with someone like Thune/Pence.

So, the problem for the GOP in NV/DE was simply lack of good conservative candidates along the lines of Thune/Pence.  IT IS A RECRUITING PROBLEM.  Same problem in KY, even though it was a victory.  But, I think the GOP will bring its A Team for 2012 Senate, as recruiting should be much easier.

(I don’t know enough about the primaries in CA or CO to comment)

I just want the GOP to apply these lessons towards 2012.

Hey...

Aren't you supposed to put some sort of addendum to this...like paid for by Thune/Pence...or I'm Thune Pence and I approved this message.

You screw up just this much, and I'll have you flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog $hit out of Hong Kong.

[fezzyfestoon]

This is just like an extreme alcohol binge by the GOP.  They're going to regret it as soon as it's over.  They drank as much Busch Lite as they could get their hands on when they should have been pacing themselves on at least Yuengling, even though there were some good microbrews available.  That Busch is coming right back up as soon as it goes down.  The others could have had some staying power.

[Badger]

The point here isn't that the Dems didn't get their asses handed to them---notwithstanding surprise hang on victories in CO, NV, and the IL statehouse, we certainly did. The point of the thread is the Tea Party kept the GOP from winning even bigger.

This is particularly true in the Senate. But for the Tea Party it would probably be Republican this morning. O'Donnell obviously took the seat from safe R to safe D. Literally ANY of Angle's major primary opponents (even "pay your medical bills with chickens" Lowden), would've sent Harry Reid into retirement last night. Buck's far right views compared to Norton obviously made the difference in a skin close result in CO. That's 3 seats alone; enough to get to 50-50 and one suitably bribed/cajoled Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman away from "Majority Leader McConnell".

And even that calculus doesn't account for the vast additional $ spent defending Paul's win where Grayson would've likely won close to Ayotte or Portman levels. For that matter, anyone here want to take bets on the final results of Simmons vs. Blumenthal in CT?

Yes, the Dems were slaughtered last night, but at least we did a bit better than expected in the Senate races, primarily due to the tea party. In fact, but for the teabaggers the GOP would likely control both houses now.

[Platypus]

I think you'll find it was America that got screwed, not the GOP.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I agree with Badger and disagree with Gramps.
Sane conservatives like David Frum lashed out against the Tea Party yesterday, among all the celebrations, because they cost Republicans control of the Senate. Are they trying to spin too?

And just for the record, Josh Marshall made an interesting observation: while Tea Party candidates had great success in House races, they didn't fare that well in Senate races.
Could it be because a senate race is more high profile and thus the candidates are under greater scrutiny by the media?   

[minionofmidas]

BTW, don't give me the argument that the Tea Party created the enthusiasm which so obviously helped the Republicans last night - as far as I can tell, the Tea Party is a product of said enthusiasm, not the other way around.

The silly name and rudimentary organization are a product; the mindset and political style are a cause.

while Tea Party candidates had great success in House races, they didn't fare that well in Senate races.
Could it be because a senate race is more high profile and thus the candidates are under greater scrutiny by the media?   

You betcha. (I would also posit that voters, not just media organizations, expect a bit more gravitas and sanity from their Senators than their Representatives.)

I think you'll find it was America that got screwed, not the GOP.

Nothing to add.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Hey...

Aren't you supposed to put some sort of addendum to this...like paid for by Thune/Pence...or I'm Thune Pence and I approved this message.

You screw up just this much, and I'll have you flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog $hit out of Hong Kong.

I don't even know anything about Michele Bachmann, and now she is running for a GOP leadership position.  I may agree with her on some issues, but I don't like her crudeness and/or approach.  I used to be to the right of the GOP, now I'm to the left, which doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling - it sucks to be in the middle!  I'm too out of touch, been holding on too tight, I've lost the edge.  And I think the disconnect came during the campaign of 2008 when I rejected Palin as a lightweight while the Right feel in love with her.

I grew up watching adult behavior from the likes of former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming.  But Bachmann/Miller/Palin run around in public as if they were simply trolling the Atlas forum.  

The GOP better find some statesmen and find them fast!  Otherwise, they're simply gonna mimic Fox News more and more.

[Joe Republic]

According to the New York Times analysis (click on the 'Electoral Explorer' tab), exactly half of the pickups in the House were by 'Tea Party' candidates.  There were another 82 House seats in which Democrats retained their seats over 'Tea Party' Republicans, but of course many of these were unwinnable even if the Republican nominees had been... normal.

[J. J.]

Yes, the Dems were slaughtered last night, but at least we did a bit better than expected in the Senate races, primarily due to the tea party. In fact, but for the teabaggers the GOP would likely control both houses now.

And without the Tea Party, a lot of the energy would not have been there.  I think it would have been a wash in the Senate and certainly a lower total in the House.

Even if the "Tea Party candidates" had won, Buck, Angle, O'Donnell, the GOP would not control the Senate.

[Brittain33]

Even if the "Tea Party candidates" had won, Buck, Angle, O'Donnell, the GOP would not control the Senate.

"Cancel my press conference."