As Republicans across the country take to the polls to nominate their candidates, a media narrative is emerging; rabid Tea Partiers are turning their noses at the establishment favorites, and instead picking self-proclaimed outsiders whose extreme views jeopardize the Republicans’ odds of riding a wave of anti-Washington sentiment to victory in November.
It is certainly true that conservatives seem more inclined than usual to challenge the dominance of political insiders, especially those seen as overly eager to work with Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Concern with the direction of their elected representatives is by no means a new phenomenon among conservatives, but the efficacy of insurgent campaigns has more to do with institutional factors than the trumpeted power of the grassroots.
In 2004, conservative Congressman Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania challenged incumbent Senator Arlen Specter for the GOP nomination, charging that he had drifted too far to the left over the course of his long tenure. The same dynamic emerged in the Rhode Island primary in 2006, in which the liberal incumbent, Lincoln Chaffee, faced off against Steve Laffey.
In both cases, the incumbent squeaked through by a narrow margin, owing in large part to the support of the party apparatus. Specter received endorsements from President Bush and his fellow Pennsylvania Senator (and conservative hero) Rick Santorum. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) sponsored ads promoting Chaffee and attacking Laffey.
This cycle, however, incumbents and establishment preferences have earned no such assistance. The current NRSC head, John Cornyn of Texas, has repeatedly stated that the organization will not take sides in contested primaries, even when its top recruits are facing the prospect of defeat. And with the party out of office and its leadership in disarray, establishment candidates cannot rely on endorsements to save them; indeed, more often than not, a nod to their challengers from Sarah Palin or another conservative standard-bearer has proven their death knell.
At the same time, conservatives have not shown themselves to be universally opposed to incumbents and political insiders. To name just a few examples, candidates with establishment backgrounds have won races in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Arizona. Two major considerations come into play for conservatives deciding whether or not to rally behind the outsider– electability and candidate quality. Candidates affiliated with the Tea Party were able to win in Kentucky, Utah, and Alaska at least in part due to the assurance that, in a red state, virtually any Republican nominee could win in this year’s hospitable political climate. The same calculus was employed by liberals in Connecticut who denied Joe Lieberman the Democratic nomination for the Senate in 2006.
Establishment candidates have also been rewarded for their efforts to win over skeptical conservative voters. Witness John McCain, who fought hard against a primary challenge from the right in Arizona, and won a resounding victory. Though McCain’s convenient conversion on issues like immigration might sound suspicious, going on the record now makes it much harder for him to backpedal in the future.
As a result of the anti-establishment trend, the abundance and seriousness of outsider candidates is unprecedented. They are, by and large, not the kooks and cranks depicted in the mainstream media, but successful business owners, doctors, lawyers, and politicians who articulate thoughtful, principled opposition to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. Far from being radicals, these candidates’ positions on such prominent issues as health care, energy, and government spending are in line with the American mainstream.
In conclusion, the conservative movement has not– as Democrats hope and Republicans fear– endangered its prospects by embracing anti-establishment candidates with ties to the Tea Party. Rather, it has strengthened those prospects by preventing the election of potential turncoats while preparing the eventual nominee to counter their Democratic opponents in the general election. This is how competitive primaries are supposed to function, just as, in 2008, Barack Obama benefitted from his protracted struggle against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination by honing his political skills and testing his defenses (Clinton’s famous “3 a.m.” ad, for instance, required Obama to develop a response to accusations that he was weak on national security, allowing him to preempt those charges when they were levied by Republicans). The collective refusal of the Republican base to rubber-stamp establishment candidates has improved, not diminished, the party’s chances of reclaiming the House, and possibly even the Senate, in the fall. More importantly, it has cultivated a new generation of Republican leaders, unattached to the party’s past failures, whose influence will continue to resonate for years to come.
Sam Norton is a junior from Falmouth, Maine. He is majoring in politics.