A Bad Night for the Tea Party Caucus

With Rep. Tiahrt and Rep. Hoekstra’s primary losses, yesterday's results mean that two Tea Party caucus members won’t be back in Washington.

With Rep. Jerry Moran winning the Kansas senatorial primary last evening, the state will likely get another Republican Senator next January to replace outgoing Senator Sam Brownback.

But will he be a “moderate” Republican senator? Last evening, Hotline on Call rushed out a piece announcing Rep. Jerry Moran’s victory in the Kansas senatorial primary titled ‘Moran Win Another Victory For GOP Center’.  Moran’s victory, wrote Hotline On Call’s Dan Roem, was “proof that the more moderate candidates can still get elected in GOP primaries.”

Tell that to South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis. Unfortunately, the moderate-conservative dichotomy didn’t really exist in the race. Moran has a lifetime ACU rating of 91.74, an ‘A’ grade from the NRA, and Sen. Jim Demint’s endorsement.

In this case, ‘moderate’ is just meant to describe the candidate that is the tiniest bit less conservative than the ‘conservative’ candidate. The NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez had to resort to differences in facial expressions to differentiate Moran from the ‘conservative’ Rep. Todd Tiahrt.

As a commenter noted in this pre-primary piece, the Kansas primary race amounted to “a slight moment of tension when deciding whether to buy the red car or the burgundy car.”

A Senator Todd Tiahrt would have looked very little different than a Senator Jerry Moran, who if elected will look quite similar to Sen. Sam Brownback, now running for Governor of Kansas.

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Other primary news of note to FrumForum audiences will be that Michigan Representative and Tea Party caucus member Pete Hoekstra, running for the Republican nomination for governor.

The Tea Party candidate was bested by businessman Rick Snyder, who won the hearts of Michigan voters with an ad campaign titled: ‘One Tough Nerd’, which ran during the Super Bowl. “Rich Snyder started reading Fortune Magazine… when he was eight,” intones the deep-voiced narrator.

With Hoekstra’s loss, yesterday’s primary night results mean that two Tea Party caucus members – Tiahrt and Hoekstra - won’t be back in Congress next January.

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