Republicans at mercy of Tea Partiers

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, was thwarted in his attempt at a fourth term during a convention last Saturday in which two candidates were chosen to vie for the Republican nomination for one of Utah’s Senate seats.

Bennett is considered by many (but isn’t yet certain) to be the first Washington incumbent of this primary season to lose his bid for re-election because he has not ruled out the possibility of waging a write-in campaign for the GOP nomination or an independent campaign in the general election.

His defeat comes largely as a result of what Utah GOP convention-goers considered his insufficiently conservative credentials — he voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout of major banks in 2008 and co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that included an individual insurance mandate like the one included in the health care bill passed in March.

Although Bennett seems to be the first casualty of this far-right backlash, it appears he might soon get plenty of company.

Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, once the clear frontrunner to replace retiring Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., is now trailing Rand Paul, a physician and the son of libertarian-leaning Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas, by double digits before Tuesday’s primary election. Paul’s campaign has successfully branded Grayson, who has the endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as too much of an establishment candidate for Kentucky.

Additionally, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is facing unexpectedly stiff opposition from former Congressman J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., who, like Paul, is a Tea Party favorite. Although McCain retains a sizable lead (five to 10 percentage points) over Hayworth and has the endorsement of Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, more than three months remain before Arizona’s late-summer primary.

While the trend of Tea Party-driven ousters of establishment Republicans would seem encouraging to the burgeoning movement, the primary to replace Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., should give the group pause.

In this race, Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio was in an insurgent-like position relative to popular moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Crist but had opened up a sizeable lead against him — until Crist took a leaf out of moderate Sen. Joe Lieberman’s playbook and decided to run as an independent instead.

Lieberman, once a Democrat whose foreign policy sensibilities placed him closer to the Republicans, lost the Connecticut primary in 2006 to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, but he chose afterward to run as an independent in the general election and won handily.

Crist, it appears, read the proverbial tea leaves earlier in his contest than Lieberman did, so he didn’t wait to lose his party’s primary before dropping out. Now that he is without a party affiliation, he leads Rubio and Democratic frontrunner Kendrick Meek in three-way polls.

Fortunately for Rubio and Tea Partiers, Crist’s lead does not appear insurmountable, but a far-right Republican’s surge against a moderate Republican-turned-independent will surely drive Democratic votes toward Crist, just as Lamont’s challenge to Lieberman induced Republicans to support Lieberman.

More worrying, though, for the Republican party as a whole is the fact that Crist has declined to commit to caucusing with Republicans if elected — something about which he will eventually have to make a choice.

The lesson for Tea Party activists? Remember that primary elections are not general elections. Just because you have booted Bennett and Crist from the party (and just because you might do so to McCain and Grayson) does not mean these men are sure to lose the general election if they run as independents — nor does it guarantee Democrats won’t win the seats in the general election in the event that ousted moderate Republicans decline to run as independents.

The lesson for Republicans, then, is obvious. Feel free to capitalize on Tea Party-generated enthusiasm for conservative causes — but beware this movement’s potential to destabilize your party and imperil its general election prospects.