* The Wall Street Journal
* MARCH 29, 2010
Tea-Party Candidates Face Hard Reality of Campaigns
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704734304575120362014554880.html?mod=djemTMB_h#printMode
By NEIL KING JR. And DOUGLAS BELKIN
Jason Meade of New Franklin, Ohio, is among hundreds of political
hopefuls looking to ride the "tea party" wave to Washington this year.
Like most, he's finding it a tough go.
Mr. Meade is running in the Republican primary in Ohio's 13th
Congressional District against five candidates while juggling a
50-hour workweek at a plastics plant. His headquarters "is in the
second-floor living room in the corner where the computer is," he
says. His campaign has $3,000 to its name.
The Tea Party movement could splinter off votes from the GOP if they
try to run as a third party, WSJ executive editor Jerry Seib reports.
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Associated Press
Debra Medina finished third in the Texas GOP primary for governor.
teaparty
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Mr. Meade's experience goes to the heart of a debate roiling the
nascent movement: Should it back fervent long shots who hew to its
antigovernment views, or should it rally around more traditional
candidates, even if they don't perfectly reflect the movement's
distaste for incumbents, taxes and spending?
The question is being asked as homegrown candidates confront brute
realities of politics: reluctant donors, limited party support,
inexperienced staffers and the uphill fight against incumbents
Grassroots support remains vigorous, as evidenced by the thousands of
tea-party activists who gathered Saturday in Searchlight, Nev., to
protest the health-care law and urge the ouster of Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid. Yet despite thronging primary races across the
U.S., true tea-party candidates have stumbled at the polls. In the
March 2 Texas primary, 18 incumbent Republican House members faced
multiple challengers, including a flock of tea-party faithful. The
incumbents won handily, with only one garnering below 60% of the vote.
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Nor has a surge in Republican candidates translated into higher
contributions. On average, Republican primary challengers have raised
37% less than Democratic counterparts, Federal Election Commission
records show. Republican candidates for Congress have raised $294
million through 2009, nearly $30 million less than the Democrats, even
though twice as many Republicans are running.
"The problem with the tea-party movement is it has inspired too many
candidates," says Patrick Hughes, a candidate with tea-party backing
who was trounced by Rep. Mark Kirk in the crowded Illinois Republican
Senate primary. "The movement will fail if it can't coalesce behind
candidates who can win."
Journal Community
“The problem with the tea-party movement is that it is driven by
voter anger. Fair enough, but anger is not a policy. ”
—Rian Davis
Organizers hope public anger over President Barack Obama's health-care
overhaul will help tea-party candidates who fiercely opposed the plan.
Many are now promising to help repeal the law if they win, and are
using the bill to try to drum up support from donors.
The movement began last year as a backlash against the growth of the
government, federal bailouts and the national debt. The next big test
comes in May, when 10 states hold primaries, including the tea-party
hotbeds of Indiana and Ohio. The Republican establishment is watching
to see if tea-party voters fall in line behind the national party's
candidates.
Journal Community
Handicappers are predicting heavy Democratic losses in November.
Democrats hope the tea-party surge will soften that blow by diluting
Republican campaign coffers and pulling mainstream conservatives to
the right, imperiling their chances in the general election.
"This is great news for us," says Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who
chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC has
launched a Web site to highlight divisions in the GOP primaries.
Republicans say the movement has fired up the party's base, a trend
that has Democrats worried about a widening enthusiasm gap. The
weekend protest in Nevada, with a crowd estimated at about 7,000, is a
sign of the movement's ability to rally its troops.
Thousands more are expected at a nationwide series of rallies
culminating in a tax-day protest April 15 on the National Mall in
Washington.
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A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed 29% of voters have a
positive view of the tea-party cause. That fervor has helped draw a
wave of newcomers to seek public office. There are now 617 more
Republicans running in congressional primaries than ran in the last
midterm election, in 2006, according to the Federal Elections
Commission. That's up 134%.
The number of Democrats in primaries remains almost unchanged from
2006, when the party gained 30 seats in the House and six in the
Senate.
Some pollsters see perils ahead for the Republicans if tea-party
candidates forge on after the primaries to run as independents in the
general election. Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who surveyed
1,500 likely voters in late February, found that 46% of independents
said they'd vote for an unnamed third party that prioritized cutting
spending, far more than would vote for either a Democrat or a
Republican.
Few House races are stirring more tea-party fervor than the sprawling
5th District in southern Virginia, where seven Republican candidates
are battling for the right to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Tom
Perriello.
Five of the Republicans claim allegiance to the tea-party mantle: two
transplanted real-estate moguls, a pilot, a teacher and an Internet
entrepreneur.
"It's a train wreck, no doubt about it," says Mark Lloyd, founder of
the Lynchburg Tea Party and a leading figure in the Virginia
insurgency. "My proposal is we give everyone a tire iron and have them
work it out in the parking lot."
State Sen. Robert Hurt has emerged as the front-runner for the June 8
Republican primary. He has high name recognition and a fat wallet.
Donors and political-action committees gave him $293,458 by the end of
December, more than four times as much as the other Republican
candidates combined.
Tea-party activists are torn. Mr. Hurt voted for a tax increase in
2004 to avoid a shutdown of the Virginia government. He is also an
elected official favored by the Republican Party—both black marks for
the movement.
Yet at a packed debate last month, one created for tea-party
activists, Mr. Hurt came in a close second in a straw poll. The
winner, by just two votes out of the 246 cast, was real-estate
developer Jim McKelvey, who lent his organization $500,000 to
jump-start a campaign that has so far received little outside
financial support.
The key issue, says Mr. Hurt's campaign strategist, Chris LaCivita, is
who's best positioned to take on Mr. Perriello, the Democrat. Movement
activists "know that if the tea party has no electoral success, then
the movement itself will fold," he says. "They are waking up to the
electability issue."
Local tea-party organizer Nigel Coleman agrees. "What we have to
remember is that primaries are when we decide who is the most likely
to win in November," Mr. Coleman says. The Virginia tea-party groups
are still debating whether to endorse a candidate in the primary.
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, viewed by many as a force
behind the tea-party movement, says he sees signs of growing
pragmatism in the ranks. "We have to be willing to take the 80%
conservative over the 100% conservative," he says, "especially when we
know that the 80% conservative stands the best chance of beating the
100% liberal."
As evidence, he points to the tea-party fueled election in
Massachusetts of Sen. Scott Brown—hardly a hard-line conservative—and
to the March 2 Texas Republican primary.
Texas gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina excited the movement when
she shot out of obscurity last year, briefly rattling the campaigns of
Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson. But she won just 18%
of the vote, placing a distant third. Ms. Medina lost momentum when
she told an interviewer that the U.S. government may have had a hand
in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In Indiana, another inexperienced tea-party candidate, Richard Behney,
was hurt by a gaffe: He told supporters of his Senate campaign that he
was "cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show" if the
government didn't rein in spending.
For all their fervor, many activists are taking their cue from that
most elemental of indicators—money. That issue is on display in the
8th District of Tennessee. A half-dozen Republican hopefuls are facing
off, including Donn Janes, a computer-network engineer running under
the tea-party mantle. Mr. Janes, who has struggled to raise cash, now
plans to run as an independent in the general election no matter what
happens in the August primary. The other tea-party hopefuls in the
race also have drawn few donors.
Farmer and gospel singer Stephen Fincher, running as a traditional
Republican, has garnered attention from GOP brass in Washington and
$675,000 in donations. That momentum has siphoned support from Mr.
Janes and other tea-party hopefuls.
"That Steven Fincher has been anointed by the Republican Party is
anathema to some folks in the tea party," says David Nance, who heads
the local Gibson County Tea Party. "But personally, I think he is the
best candidate and the one most likely to win in November."
In north Texas, former telecom executive Steve Clark poured more than
$600,000 of his own money into a tea-party campaign that lagged far
behind the incumbent, 86-year-old Ralph Hall, the oldest member of the
House and a Democrat until he switched parties in 2004. Rep. Hall won
with 57% of the vote to Mr. Clark's 29%.
Mr. Meade, the Ohio tea-party candidate, says he had his political
awakening last year after a thicket of regulations deterred him and a
friend from opening a cigar store.
His candidacy, launched about a year ago, is still getting started and
remains more rebellious than Republican. Mr. Meade says he has
frequently found himself talking to groups of two or three professed
Democrats trying to persuade them they are actually conservatives. The
little money he's raised is mostly from friends and family. His wife,
a Starbucks barista, is the campaign treasurer.
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