THE TEA PARTY delivered fresh shocks to the Republican establishment in party primaries yesterday, of which the most sensational was the victory of the ultra-conservative Christine O’Donnell in Delaware.
Ms O’Donnell, a Christian conservative who is pro-gun, anti-abortion, fiscally conservative and believes masturbation to be a sin, was a rank outsider.
“The people of Delaware have spoken, no more politics as usual,” she told cheering supporters at a celebration party. “The cause is restoring America.”
The Tea Party chalked up another victory in New York, where its candidate won the Republican nomination to run for governor in November.
Delaware and New York add to previous Tea Party victories in Utah, Kentucky and Alaska that few would have predicted at the start of the year.
They were among the last in a series of primaries that have been going on for months. With candidates for the Senate, House and governorships now in place, the focus switches to the elections on November 2nd.
The Tea Party wins provided further evidence of the political upheaval taking place in the US, mostly among conservatives unhappy with the president and with an economy slow to recover and seeking a return to what they regard as traditional American values.
Democrats were quietly cheering, seeing their Tea Party-backed opponents as easier to beat than the moderate Republicans they displaced. A senior Democratic senator described Ms O’Donnell as an ultra-rightwing extremist.
Ms O’Donnell was a leader of the Christian lobby group Saviour’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth and, even by Tea Party standards, is well to the right.
One of her most famous quotes came in a television interview a decade ago when she said: “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can’t masturbate without lust.”
She beat Mike Castle, a veteran Republican, with 53 per cent to 47 per cent of the vote to win the party nomination and will stand for the US Senate as the Republican candidate in Delaware in November.
The seat has a special political resonance as it was held by Joe Biden until he became vice-president in 2008.
The Republican establishment had hoped this year to take over the Tea Party, enlisting its enthusiastic and energetic members, but the string of victories suggest it is the Republican Party that is in danger of being reshaped by the Tea Party as it is forced to the right.
Almost as unlikely a win for the Tea Party as Ms O’Donnell’s was that of Carl Paladino in New York. Few pundits had suggested the political novice would beat the former congressman Rick Lazio, a Republican establishment candidate. Mr Paladino will face the Democrat Andrew Cuomo in November.
In New Hampshire, there was a tight race where the Tea Party was looking for another upset. The former state attorney general Kelly Ayotte was facing a challenge from the Tea Party-backed candidate Ovide Lamontagne. With one-quarter of the votes counted, Mr Lamontagne held a small lead over Ms Ayotte.
Ms O’Donnell celebrated her win with about 200 to 300 volunteers and supporters gathered in the Elk Lodge in Dover, the state capital of Delaware.
Many of them shared her Christian views, although not all agreed with some of her pronouncements on issues such as masturbation. What mattered was that they had, against the odds, beaten the establishment candidate.
Among those celebrating was George Schroeder, a doctor and a Tea Party sympathiser who had travelled from Florida to support her.
He said: “This is the start of a revolution. This is about taking America back. This will send seismic waves through the establishment.”
Karl Rove, George Bush’s political strategist, speaking on Fox News, shared the Democratic assessment that her win boosted them.
“There’s just a lot of nutty things she’s been saying that just simply don’t add up,” Mr Rove said.
“I’m for the Republican, but I’ve got to tell you we were looking at eight to nine seats in the Senate we’re now looking at seven to eight. In my opinion, this is not a race we’re going to be able to win.”
The Republicans need to win 10 seats to take control of the Senate.
The Tea Party is a grassroots conservative uprising that began last year as a reaction against Mr Obama, who is regarded as a socialist, and the Republican Party, which is seen as having betrayed its conservative roots.
Ms O’Donnell had been flagging in the polls until the Tea Party provided $250,000 in funding.
She received another boost last week when Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008 and one of the leading lights in the Tea Party movement, endorsed her. – ( Guardianservice)