O, the month of May, the merry month of May, So frolic, so gay.... —Thomas Dekker (c. 1572-1632), "The Merry Month of May."
The poet Thomas Dekker is surely set to become a Tea Party favorite, anticipating as he did the merry and gay (in the old-fashioned sense) month of May 2012: Merry and gay for all who'd like to see a more conservative, more reform-minded, more populist (but responsibly populist) Republican party.
First, on May 8, Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock came from behind (who was down by double digits a couple months ago) to defeat six-term incumbent senator Dick Lugar in the GOP primary. Lugar had the support of the Washington, D.C. GOP establishment (even the so-called "Young Guns"), and outspent Mourdock. He lost by 22 points.
Yesterday, on May 15, Tea Party favorite Nebraska state senator Deb Fischer won a come-from-behind victory over her establishment-supported opponents in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, despite being massively outspent and trailing just two months before by over 30 points.
Next Tuesday, May 22, conservative Iraq and Afghanistan vet Tom Cotton looks poised to win the nomination in the 4th Congressional District of Arkansas over his opponent, a veteran of the Huckabee administration who ran and lost last time.
And at the end of the month, on May 29, 41-year-old former Supreme Court law clerk and Texas solicitor general Ted Cruz, who's been surging in the polls, could well force a runoff (or even win outright) against a quintessentially wealthy, conventional, and unimpressive establishment candidate, lieutenant governor David Dewhurst.
So: In Indiana, a conservative office holder with the courage to take on his state's senior political figure and establishment icon is victorious; in Nebraska, a rancher and mom sick of the mediocre establishment figures in her state surges to victory; in Arkansas, a young combat vet (from Harvard, no less!) goes back home to fight for a congressional seat and now leads; and in Texas, another bright young conservative taking on a wealthy self-funder who thought he was entitled to the Senate seat has a real chance.
Regarding Dick Lugar’s loss to Richard Murdock, the Old Gray Lady wants you to know one thing: He went down because he was just too gosh-darned moderate and sensible for those insane Tea Party Republicans in Indiana and the dastardly outside groups that targeted him:
Richard Mourdock’s big primary victory over incumbent senator Dick Lugar in Indiana suggests that the insurgent Tea Party conservatism of 2009-2010 is alive and well in the 2012 Republican party.
President Barack Obama's reelection campaign released another campaign ad this morning, a 60-second spot that will run in battleground states Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. "While the campaign has done a number of response spots, this is the first proactive, paid spot in battleground states," Politico says. But the Obama campaign also takes a little time to take a whack at the Tea Party.
The Obama campaign has released a new web ad that lists every apparent accomplishment of the president's three years in office. The seven minute spot begins by showing how bad the economy was when the president took office, and suggests that President Obama saved America with the stimulus, the auto bailout, guaranteed contraception, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, Obamacare, killing Osama bin Laden, and more:
Senator Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) is fighting for survival in his contentious Republican primary with state treasurer Richard Mourdock, a conservative with broad Tea Party support. Speaking with reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, Lugar seemed to be unsure about whether or not the Tea Party has been a force for good in the GOP.
In many ways, the story of the 2012 Republican primary has been the inability of Mitt Romney to win over more than a third of self-identified “strong Tea Party supporters” or “very conservative” voters. If he had received the support of those voters, even a slim majority of them, the race would almost certainly have been over weeks ago.
The United States had been in recession since the previous December, according to the Bureau of Economic Research, and in March 2008 the Fed had brokered a panicked fire sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase. But the real drama did not begin until September, when the government nationalized mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the government took over AIG, global credit markets froze, and a run began on money market funds.
A new Pew poll of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters finds Rick Santorum with a slight lead over Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential race, 30 percent to 28 percent. Seventeen percent support Newt Gingrich, and 12 percent support Ron Paul. The poll was conducted between February 8 and February 12, after Santorum's sweep in the Missouri primary and the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses last Tuesday.
Republicans have been critical of the Obama administration's "preventive care" regulation, both before and after its (meaningless) modification Friday. But have our elected leaders and our candidates made the fundamental point?
A new 60-second radio advertisement from the Mitt Romney campaign makes an appeal to South Carolina's socially conservative Republicans. Listen to the ad below:
Rasmussen polling shows Mitt Romney leading in South Carolina, while Newt Gingrich is in second place and closing. It’s also interesting, however, to note the Republican candidates’ respective levels of support among Tea Party and non-Tea Party voters in what will be the first Republican-leaning state to host a 2012 GOP primary.
Des Moines While campaigning in Iowa on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul praised the Occupy Wall Street movement, comparing it to the Tea Party movement. "In many ways, I identify with both groups," Paul said. Both groups are fed up with problems in Washington and "the two-party-system," Paul said while speaking at an insurance company in Des Moines.
