Former establishment Republican State Rep. Burt Solomons, still marinating in his own political failure, tweeted this morning on the re-election of Obama. His conclusion? Obama’s victory over Romney means America didn’t want to follow the “tea party loons”.
Trying to slip nonsense of this caliber into the Texas water supply takes gumption. Solomons gets credit for that. And his timing was good. He tried it while conservatives, our state and nation’s biggest electoral group, is low, mourning the re-election of the worst President in American history.
Otherwise, his analysis befits his place on the ash heap of Texas political history.
Conservatives didn’t get to be “for” anyone in this election. They only got to be against somebody.
Remember how the GOP nominated the most liberal guy in the field? Remember – it was the guy who invented ObamaCare, and who only became pro-life and pro-gun when he needed to win a nationwide primary? Remember how the GOP establishment bought the primary for him one two week-long shock-and-awe state ad campaign at a time?
The tea party did not lose this election. One of the weakest Presidential incumbents in a generation won because the wing of the party Solomons belongs to walked away from the GOP primary happy.
The GOP nominated an uber-disciplined, mild-mannered, across-the-board moderate who pleased the lobby but left everyone else totally unsatisfied.
In fact, the GOP nominee reminded you a lot of Solomon’s old leader, Speaker Joe Straus, who was an early endorser of Romney’s.
I wonder what the Burt Solomons of the world were saying at this stage back in 1980. The truth of their electoral theory was put to the test. The guy who was supposedly “all base, no crossover appeal” won by an electoral margin of 489 to 49.
Burt’s mood is understandable. He was replaced by a Tea Party guy.
But his logic is tortured.You don’t get to disavow your own guy. This loss is on the doorstep of the people the Tea Party came to replace.
When we have a conservative at the top of the ticket we’ll all remember what a Tea Party election feels like.