Alaska News

Tea party wins could become the best bet for Democrats

The tea party movement -- independent collections of furious citizens -- is worrisome. Democrats, in the blackest corners of their evil hearts, could not have come up with a better scam to derail Republicans in a critical election year.

As rage against incumbents, party leadership and the government swirls across the nation, Senate tea party primary winners -- Alaska's Joe Miller, Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sharron Angle of Nevada, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ken Buck of Colorado and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin -- have taken hard-line positions on everything from regulatory changes to Social Security to the Department of Education that could shove the GOP far to the right.

Even Republicans, who need 10 Senate seats and 40 House seats to control Congress, cannot seem to agree about the tea party. It offers good ideas but adamantly demands ideological purity. Reduced spending. Limited government (read limited taxes). Balanced budgets. Self-reliance. Wonderful. The tea party folks are even correct when they say too many in the GOP have strayed to the left, but with their far right rhetoric, they seem to forget that most Americans live in the middle of the political spectrum, not out on the fringes.

The tea party, in any of its incarnations, seems willing to toss reason out the window -- even if it only makes things worse. Throw the bums out, is its motto. It's all or nothing; no compromise. We're right; you're wrong. Pragmatism, to the activists, is something you visit an optometrist to fix.

All of that is great news for the evil Harry Reid and Democrats stampeding to the void created in the center of the political spectrum as the tea party hustles the GOP to the right. For Reid, tea party activists are providing opportunity -- and possible salvation.

Take, for instance, perennial Delaware U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, a scandal-plagued marketing consultant who upset longtime Republican Rep. Mike Castle in last week's primary election. It was a big victory for O'Donnell, the tea party and her supporters. It was a humongous win for Reid.

Say what you will about Castle, who inarguably was a sorry excuse for a Republican during his 44 years in public office, but his Rino-ness allowed him to retain his congressional seat for years in a Democratic stronghold. Some observers had picked him to win easily in the U.S. Senate primary and then the general.

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The bad news? Primary victor O'Donnell is not believed to have a snowball's chance in the general election, and her win likely will allow Democrats to retain the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden and now held by place-holder Democrat Ted Kaufman.

That's success? Take one Senate seat about to fall into Republican hands and hand it back to the Democrats. Tea party politics can be confusing.

Reid also has a very good chance of hanging onto his Senate seat, thanks to the tea party's -- how shall we say? -- colorful candidate in Nevada, and if that happens, it's unlikely Republicans will win back the Senate majority.

Closer to home, the Tea Party Express of California -- always vitally interested in Alaska -- anted up nearly $600,000 to support Joe Miller, a guy few Alaskans had heard of before the primary, in a negative campaign against moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She simply was not Republican enough, not right-wing enough, not ideologically pure enough.

Face it: The late Sen. Ted Stevens would not have been Republican enough for this crowd. Remarkably, he and Murkowski voted the same way most of the time. He's a state hero. She lost the primary. Go figure.

The Tea Party Express and its Outside money have endangered a secure Republican Senate seat -- with its seniority -- that now could fall into Democrat Scott McAdams' lap. Reid must be salivating. (Do not call or write to say seniority does not matter. I'll only be embarrassed for you.)

Who's Miller? He's been on the government payroll most of his adult life -- despite his railing against government spending. In a Palinesque fashion, he wraps himself in the Constitution. Political record? Zip. He ran only once before for public office in Alaska, against Democrat Rep. David Guttenberg in 2004 for the Fairbanks District 8 House seat. He lost. Instead of a veteran senator on the GOP ticket, we are left with Miller.

The tea party movement, indeed, is worrisome.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

Paul Jenkins

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Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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