Virginia, Alabama Voter Choices Show Tea Party Declining

[Purveyor]

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Nov 6, 2013

In the closing days of his losing campaign for Virginia’s governorship, Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli called the contest a referendum on Obamacare. Virginia voter Lee Killen saw it instead as a referendum on the Tea Party -- and he voted no.

Killen, a Republican-turned-independent from Fairfax, cast his ballot for Terry McAuliffe less to endorse the Democrat than to lodge a protest against the small-government movement he said has hijacked his former party.

“I don’t particularly like McAuliffe, but I went with him basically because I disagree with the Tea Party approach to life -- no compromise, no middle ground,” Killen, 70, a retired software engineer, said in an interview just after casting his vote yesterday. “Cuccinelli has been a Tea Party leader from the very beginning, and those values are not my values.”

It’s that dynamic as much as any other that tipped the balance in Virginia against Republicans, carrying McAuliffe, 56, the former national party chairman and fundraiser, to victory. He had 48 percent of the vote to Cuccinelli’s 46 percent, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting in the Associated Press tally.

The same forces were at play in Alabama, where business-backed Bradley Byrne defeated Tea Party-aligned rival Dean Young in the Republican primary for a special U.S. House election next month to fill an open seat. Byrne drew 52 percent of the vote to Young’s 48 percent, with all precincts reporting in the AP tally.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-06/virginia-alabama-voter-choices-show-tea-party-declining.html

[CobaltBlue]

1. The bottom line

The establishment part of the Republican party are trying to purge "Tea Party" people.

I also would guess that many a "Tea Party" disregarded how their shutdown of the government screwed their financial overlords. Those overlords are invested heavily and do not find it beneficial to have government shut down. So they're going after those "Tea Party" folks to get them in control. Make them lose, if necessary, is just part of the latest scheme.

Nothing noble about any of this.

It's still part of that bottom line: "Money talks. Bull---- walks."