"A majority of people don’t like their own member of Congress. For the first time ever."
"Despite Congress' abysmal approval ratings, only two incumbents have lost -- so far this year, the Senate's establishment is on a roll."
Does that make sense to you?
Kansas Sen. Roberts turns back tea party challenger; first-term Michigan lawmaker loses
Came closest to verbatim but was still a rewrite.
The point of this post is that AmeriKan elections are RIGGED and FRAUDULENT!
"Kansas Senator Pat Roberts defeats Tea Party rival" by Sean Sullivan and Robert Costa | Washington Post August 06, 2014
WASHINGTON — Senator Pat Roberts won his closely watched primary in Kansas on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the Tea Party movement in one of its final chances this year to unseat a Republican senator.
Roberts defeated radiologist Milton Wolf, a combative conservative newcomer who fashioned himself as an ideological twin of Senator Ted Cruz and vowed to bring dramatic change to the status quo in Washington. The senator will be heavily favored to win a fourth term in November, given his state’s rightward tilt.
His victory raises the odds that for the first time since 2008, no Republican senator will lose in a primary. With most nominating contests complete, the last major test will come on Thursday in Tennessee, where Senator Lamar Alexander is heavily favored against state Representative Joe Carr, an immigration hard-liner running to the senator’s right.
I knew he was out there for a reason.
Given the current immigration crisis, Alexander should lose.
Brian Walsh, a former adviser to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Republican primary voters appear to be looking not only for conservative purity, but for electability.
‘‘The good news is that the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] successfully avoided another reiteration of Christine O'Donnell or Todd Akin this cycle,’’ Walsh said, referencing two Tea Party candidates who blew winnable Senate races in 2010 and 2012. ‘‘The Republican field of candidates is as strong as it’s ever been heading into the fall.”
Democratic officials said Roberts’s red state primary victory signaled little about how the midterm elections might unfold. ‘‘This is a party that has long-term problems that their primary fights have only temporarily masked,’’ said Matt Canter, deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Who gives a fuck which faction letter is after the Corporate War Party candidate?
The perfect record so far for the party’s incumbents, at least in Senate races, has bolstered GOP hopes of winning control of the upper chamber. Party strategists worried about a repeat of 2012, when Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock defeated Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana in the primary but lost in November.
Republicans have no margin for error this year. They need to pick up six seats to win the majority, which Democrats have held since 2007.
With most precincts reporting, Roberts led Wolf 48 percent to 41 percent. Two other candidates combined for about 11 percent.
Kansas was one of four states where voters went to the polls Tuesday, along with Michigan, Missouri, and Washington. Several House primaries were under scrutiny.
In Michigan, Representative Kerry Bentivolio, a libertarian-leaning Republican congressman, became just the third sitting House member to lose a primary this year. Bentivolio, who has clashed with House GOP leadership, lost by a wide margin to businessman Dave Trott. Another libertarian-leaning Republican, Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, defeated businessman Brian Ellis, who conceded about 2½ hours after polls closed.
Barely won, huh? Looks like the Ron Paul movement is dead.
Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas, in the unusual position of facing a GOP challenger running to his left, defeated former congressman Todd Tiahrt. Tiahrt vigorously defended earmark spending, while Pompeo voiced strong opposition.
Wolf, a second cousin of President Obama, was given an early boost in February, when Roberts opened himself up to charges that he lost touch with the state. The New York Times reported that Roberts pays rent to supporters to stay with them when he is in Kansas, instead of living in his own house. Roberts owns a home in Northern Virginia.
But Wolf failed to capitalize. He didn’t win the full faith of national Tea Party groups. He was badly outraised and outspent by Roberts. Wolf was also hamstrung by a Topeka Capital-Journal report revealing he posted X-ray images of gunshot victims and others on Facebook and cracked jokes about them.
Six of the 12 Republican senators up for reelection this year drew notable primary challengers. Most of them fizzled and one fell painfully short.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and his top deputy, minority whip John Cornyn of Texas, routed their opponents. So did Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is known for irking conservatives by working with Democrats.
The Tea Party’s best hopes were dashed last month in Mississippi, where Thad Cochran, a long-serving Republican senator, edged out state Senator Chris McDaniel, a darling of Tea Party leaders and their advocacy groups.
Related: Mississippi Steeped in Suicide
Time to end this post.
Even conservative operatives that backed Wolf said the Tea Party’s prioritizing of the Mississippi GOP Senate primary earlier this summer made it hard for Wolf to catch fire with grass-roots activists beyond Kansas. Although he was on their radar and endorsed, he never became a cause.
Roberts, 78, was first elected to the Senate in 1996. He served in the House for eight terms before that. The senator ran a cautious campaign, refusing to debate Wolf despite his requests.
Roberts was boosted by his high marks on the scorecards of conservative organizations that rank congressional votes, giving Wolf little fodder. In its annual scorecard released this year, the American Conservative Union gave Roberts an 89 percent conservative rating during the Obama presidency — more than 25 points higher than Cochran during the same period.
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