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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jonah Goldberg
Civil war!
That was the talk on the Sunday shows and blogosphere. The conservative "establishment" had backed Mike Castle in the Delaware primary over the "tea party" favorite, Christine O'Donnell. O'Donnell won, but only after being wounded by the likes of Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer and the folks at the Weekly Standard and my own stomping ground,
The argument got heated. O'Donnell's most ardent supporters imbued opposition to her with deep ideological significance despite the fact that most of Castle's nominal supporters were far to Castle's right and more ideologically simpatico with O'Donnell. They backed Castle on the tactical grounds that he was a shoo-in to win the general election, which would give the
But Delaware's Republican primary voters saw it a different way. They have had enough with "RINOs" -- "Republicans in Name Only." The Limbaugh Law replaced the William F. Buckley Rule. The latter held that conservatives should vote for the most rightward electable candidate. The Limbaugh Law says that when the country is in open revolt against liberalism and Republicans are riding an election wave, you should vote conservative every time.
Time will tell which side will lose that debate, but one thing is already clear: The tea parties won (thank goodness).
It takes two to tango, and it takes two to fight a civil war. What seems lost on a remarkably diverse group of observers and political combatants, on the left and the right, is that there are no worthy Republican opponents to the tea parties.
Among the Republican leadership or the "conservative establishment," you will not find a single full-throated critic of the tea parties.
To borrow from an old Jim Croce song, the message out of the primaries is this: You don't tug on Superman's cape; you don't spit into the wind; you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with the tea parties.
If the spat over the Delaware primary were truly a sign of an ideological civil war or power struggle, you would expect the "establishment" to oppose tea party types in other races too. That hasn't happened.
Both the
Meanwhile, Rubio and Toomey chased moderates like Charlie Crist and Arlen Specter clear out of the
In all three cases the "establishment" has said to the moderates, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." And how have they responded to the allegedly barbaric, uncouth, tea-fueled hordes storming the Beltway castle? "Lower the drawbridge!"
"A political reporter,"
And, of course, it's no surprise that the left would be eager for news of conservative infighting and disarray. They have convinced themselves that the rest of America dislikes the tea parties as much as they do. The problem is that the facts point the other way. Independents not only dislike the Democrats more than the Republicans, they are becoming increasingly more tea partyish themselves.
The most interesting part of all this is that many pro-tea party types on the right mistook this for a civil war too. They are itching to sweep Washington clean, and they will brook no opposition. Indeed, what's remarkable is that there haven't been more Delaware-style brawls.
Regardless, the tea party gale has now swept through the
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Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future
The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
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