I have several friends lamenting about how the Tea Party has seemingly taken over the republicans, and they wonder if there are any SuperPACs out there who are going to primary any sitting members of the tea party.
I then point out that this is what Karl Rove is exactly planning on doing.
Then they are aghast that they might actually have to root for, and be on the side of Karl Rove.
I then remind them that this is six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Karl Rove is the same guy who smashed John McCain in 2000 with that ridiculous "fathered a black child" insanity. None iota of which is true, but helped catapult George W. Bush into power and really pushed the idea that extremism/purity is a valid path to victory.
The objective by republicans now isn't to curb or reach the middle or compromise or anything like that, in an effort to find "moderate" republicans and get them to win elections. Nothing could be further from the truth. The goal is to find extremely staunch conservatives who are simply electable: Compromise is still a dirty word, you just have to find people who will don't damage the party.
Tea Partiers are Republicans, and in fact, Republicans are tea partiers. They just happen to say what the Republicans have been thinking for the past thirty years (fifty if you care to go back to Nixon). Much to the horror of Karl Rove and others, when you finally have insane know-nothing republican cheerleaders in power, these same ones that are fed false facts by Fox News because of their own political machine, they become quite unappealing to the electorate at large. And while their districts may have safely gerrymandered them, that doesn't make them any less appetizing at the national level. Which means that, for the next six to seven years, the country gets to face the reoccurring, true face of the nastiness that is the republican party.
No wonder why Karl Rove is looking for more "electable" candidates. Ted Cruz is unpopular? Ted Cruz is the ultimate Republican. The Tea Party is a convenient scapegoat to try and absolve the Republican party of any wrong doing.
Any attempt to try and separate the two is disingenuous.