Tea Party Could Keep the GOP From Taking Over the U.S. Senate

Sarah Palin thinks that if the Republican Party doesn't totally embrace the tea party movement, it might as well consider itself "through" as an organizing entity.

Palin and those with similar views must recognize that if the tea party doesn't do a better job of policing candidates who can win a primary election but not the general election, it will not be as major of a force as they would like to think.

It's nonsense whenever you hear purists on the left or right say they would rather lose on principle in order to maintain their purity. That's stupid. If your party is out of power, you don't have the ability to drive the legislation. And when you're in the minority, all you're doing is shouting and not leading.

Democrats and Republicans are both studying the electoral map. They are trying to figure out what races to focus on and how they can gain a critical edge in the final days leading up to the Nov. 2 midterm election. GOP prognosticators expect they will end up with 48 seats or 49 seats.

If that's the case, the GOP elites will likely look at the tea party faithful and say, "If you didn't give us Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Linda McMahon, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, we would have taken down the Democrats and taken over the U.S. Senate."

Of course, this is presuming that those five candidates can't dispatch Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, Chris Coons in Delaware, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and Jack Conway in Kentucky.

As of late, a study of the polls reveals that every single one of those races — other than O'Donnell's — is neck-and-neck, and it will all boil down to aggressive get-out-the vote drives on both sides. Johnson has been a pretty moderate voice throughout the campaign, and he was embraced by the tea party faithful after he gave a stinging rebuke of the health care bill passed by Congress and signed into law.

But when you look at some of the loopy and outlandish comments made by Angle, O'Donnell, McMahon and Paul, it is clear that in order to win, you must have what it takes to win in a primary election and a general election.

Just ask Ned Lamont. The progressive/liberal community despised Sen. Joe Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq and attacked him with everything they had. Lamont won in the Democratic primary in 2006, but he was unable to topple Lieberman in the general election.

Angle, O'Donnell, McMahon and Paul have all been dogged by some pretty outrageous comments, angering Republican operatives while providing fodder for their liberal critics.

— If it weren't for Reid's porous approval rating in Nevada, he would be dusting Angle, despite her comments about using chickens to barter health care services; her constant running away from the media; and alluding to an armed revolt if the "tyrannical (federal) government" isn't reined in.

— McMahon — who helped build the World Wrestling Entertainment behemoth with her husband, Vince — has had to battle the criticism about the violence in the sport, rampant drug use and its portrayal of women.

While the millions she has poured into the campaign has made it easier for the GOP to stomach her involvement in the race, going back and forth on the minimum wage was a major rookie mistake. And she's trying to close the deal against a candidate who has major issues with telling the truth about his military record.

— Rand Paul and his demolish-the-federal-government view is music to the ears of the tea party, but when he said that the passage of the Civil Rights Act wasn't a good thing, that's when he went from a potentially serious candidate to the absurd. He quickly backtracked after MSNBC's Rachel Maddow used his own words to show him as clueless. He has continued to lead in that race, albeit it by a small margin, but such views are troubling for a party that has virtually no relationship with the African-American community.

— And lastly, what can we say about O'Donnell? She couldn't get it right when asked where she graduated from and when; she has touted herself as a constitutional scholar after going to a seven-day fellowship organized by a conservative foundation; her flat-out weird statements about evolution and witches that she made on Bill Maher's old show, "Politically Incorrect."

These candidates may have caught the fancy of the hard-core elements during the primaries, which are known to be all about the fringes, but that doesn't mean they have what it takes to win over the voters in a general campaign. Were it not for the total distaste for the state of the nation's economic condition, it's safe to say voters wouldn't tolerate their burn-the-barn-down rhetoric. But if the tea party desperately wants to make this a true movement that has legs, they are going to have to think practical with a goal of winning.

Yes, it has provided a desperate emotional lift for the Republican Party and a grassroots base to build from, but at the end of the day, if you can't push the ball over the end zone and put the seat in the "R" column, all you've done is gotten close.

And in politics, close ain't good enough. It's about winning.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN analyst and the author of the book, "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin." Please visit his website at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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