Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) told Breitbart News that his party's leaders should be very careful about targeting conservative members associated with the Tea Party, as the reason Republicans hold a majority in the lower chamber is because Tea Party activists voted in a wave of conservatives in 2010.
"The Tea Party was the majority maker for House Republicans; without much of these new conservatives, there would not be a Speaker Boehner. There would not be an opportunity to push back on Obamacare, so it’s pretty clear," said Huelskamp. "But the Tea Party is not some small part--it is the conservative wing of the [Republican] Party, which is a pretty strong majority. I mean it’s taken on some key tenets of the Republican Party, which are conservative."
Moderate Republicans appear most concerned about the effect conservative Senator Ted Cruz (R–TX) will have on the upcoming 2014 mid-term elections, and mainstream media outlets are taking delight in this worry. However, according to the Center for Politics, if the GOP is successfully blamed for the government shutdown, it is not conservative Republicans who need to worry about running in tough races. More importantly, even if those GOP moderates lose those seats in 2014, the analysis says, the GOP is not necessarily in danger of losing the House:
Let’s be clear here: This is largely a thought experiment. Republicans have plenty of things going for them in the 2014 midterms. There’s no historical precedent for the president’s party to take over the House from the other party in a midterm; indeed, history tells us that the “out” presidential party — in this case, the GOP — is likelier to gain seats than the “in” party. The president’s approval rating as measured by the HuffPost Pollster average is actually worse today — 43.4% approve, 51.0% disapprove — than it was right before the 2010 midterm (45.1% approve, 49.9% disapprove).As we’ve shown recently — and as Prof. Arrington’s piece indicates — Democrats are going to have to really dominate the House generic ballot, and Election Day national House vote margin, to have a real chance at taking back the House.However, if Republicans do open the door to the Democrats in the House, it’s not going to be the “Ted Cruz Republicans” who will pay the price. Rather, it’s the House Republicans in marginal districts who could see their ranks decimated, just like the House Democratic moderates whose anti-Obamacare votes couldn’t save them in 2010.
Does the outrage from moderate Republicans towards conservatives have more to do with the fact that moderates could lose hefty influence within the party after the 2014 midterm elections?
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