2012

<a href="http://">http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/03/the-2012-election-our-price-tag-fin.html</a>

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<h2>What Happened to Tea Party Candidates in 2012?</h2>

A quick Google search found this HuffPost article: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/tea-party-election-results_n_2084506.html">Tea Party Election Results: Conservative Movement Of 2010 Takes Pounding In 2012</a>,

which pointed out that of 16 U.S. Senate candidates endorsed by the Tea

Party in 2012, only four won. The Tea Party candidates for Senate were

not very successful:

<blockquote>Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) seemed poised to defeat Sen. Claire

McCaskill (D-Mo.) until his comments regarding "legitimate rape" tanked

his campaign. Additionally, Tea Party backed candidate Richard Mourdock

enjoyed a narrow lead over Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) until a debate

last month in which Mourdock said that pregnancies resulting from rape

are something that "God intended to happen."

Similarly, Tea Party favorites Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and

Sharron Angle of Nevada squandered 2010 chances to pick up Senate seats

for Republicans.

</blockquote>

Google also led me to this article from CBS: <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57558169/dick-armey-tea-party-candidates-lost-because-they-did-dumb-things/">Dick Armey: Tea party candidates lost because they "did dumb things"</a>:

<blockquote>(CBS News) Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey blamed

GOP leadership for the loss of campaigns of Republicans across the

country in 2012.

"I don't think the Republican Party schooled their candidates very

well or supported their candidates very well," Armey said on "CBS This

Morning."

Armey left the House in 2003 and went on to run FreedomWorks, an

organization that became instrumental in the rise of the tea party

movement. FreedomWorks spent $40 million in 2012 to elect tea party

candidates but only one-quarter of the candidates they endorsed won.

</blockquote>

<h2>The Tea Party is Amorphous and Hard to Define</h2>

The Tea Party doesn’t exist as a monolithic entity. There are

super-rich people like The Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson who hate

paying taxes and don’t like government regulations. They have funded

various super-PACs and astroturf groups with Tea Party labels. Then

there are people like Ron Paul and various other libertarians who run

Tea Parties here and there (and they may or may not favor things like

marriage equality or legalizing marijuana or abortion rights). A third

group is the evangelicals who want to ban things like abortion and LGBT

marriage and birth control and shariah law (WTF?) and so on. They’re the

exact opposite of libertarians. Not that I sympathize with libertarians

or evangelicals (or ultra-rich guys, for that matter). There are four

or more national tea party groups, including one that was founded as a

for-profit organization by a shady Tennessee lawyer. I think the

Tennessee guy’s group went out of business after getting slapped by

Friedman’s invisible hand).

Calling it THE Tea party – using the definite article – makes it

sounds like it’s a single political party or a single legitimate group.

It’s not. It’s just a label used by Republicans who think it will help

them get elected. Basically it’s an unorganized group of people who want

to be elected to government positions so they can shut down most

government services and lower taxes to nearly zero.

Which members of Congress (the House of Representatives) claim to espouse Tea Party values?

I found different lists from different sources on the internet, so I

decided to base this DKos diary on the official Tea Party Caucus page

from www.house.gov. Here’s the web page: <a href="http://teapartycaucus-bachmann.house.gov/membership">House of Representatives Membership (of Tea Party Caucus)</a>.

This web page will probably change soon, so here’s the list of current

members of the TP Caucus in the House (when I started writing this a few

weeks ago), in alphabetical order:

<blockquote>The 59 Tea Party Caucus Members Before the 2012 Election

Sandy Adams (FL-24) , Robert Aderholt (AL-04), Todd Akin (MO-02) , Rodney Alexander (LA-05), Michele Bachmann (MN-06), Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06) , Joe Barton (TX-06), Gus Bilirakis (FL-09) (FL-12), Rob Bishop (UT-01), Diane Black (TN-06),

Paul Broun (GA-10), Michael Burgess (TX-26), Dan Burton (IN-05)

, John Carter (TX-31), Bill Cassidy (LA-06), Howard Coble (NC-06),

Ander Crenshaw (FL-04), John Culberson (TX-07), Jeff Duncan (SC-03),

Blake Farenthold (TX-27)

Stephen Lee Fincher (TN-08), John Fleming (LA-04), Trent Franks

(AZ-02)(AZ-08), Phil Gingrey (GA-11), Louie Gohmert (TX-01), Vicky

Hartzler (MO-04), Wally Herger (CA-02) , Tim Huelskamp (KS-01), Lynn Jenkins (KS-02), Steve King (IA-05) (IA-04)

Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Jeff Landry (LA-03) , Blaine

Luetkemeyer (MO-09) (MO-03), Kenny Marchant (TX-24), Tom McClintock

(CA-04), David McKinley (WV-01), Gary Miller (CA-42)(CA-31), Mick

Mulvaney (SC-05), Randy Neugebauer (TX-19), Rich Nugent (FL-05) (FL-11)

Steven Palazzo (MS-04), Steve Pearce (NM-02), Mike Pence (IN-06) , Ted Poe (TX-02), Tom Price (GA-06), Denny Rehberg (MT-AL) , David "Phil" Roe (TN-01), Dennis Ross (FL-12) (FL-15), Edward Royce (CA-40)(CA-39), Steve Scalise (LA-01)

Pete Sessions (TX-32), Lamar Smith (TX-21), Adrian Smith (NE-03), Cliff Stearns (FL-06) , Tim Walberg (MI-07), Joe Walsh (IL-08) , Allen West (FL-22) (FL-18) , Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03), Joe Wilson (SC-02)

Note 1:  Eleven Congresspersons (whose names I

bolded) won’t be returning to the House next year.  11 of 59 members are

gone, which is 19%. That leaves 48 current members (plus whoever joins

next year after the swearing in ceremony).

Note 2:  If a name is followed by two Congressional districts, the second is their new district number after redistricting.

</blockquote>

Let’s consider this the official list of Tea Partiers in the House.

Before I tell you what happened to those 59 Tea Party Caucus Members of

Congress, I need to mention this…

.

<h2>I Am Ignoring the Following Politicians</h2>

Tea Party Senators

The Tea Party caucus in the Senate currently consists of Jim DeMint

(South Carolina), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kansas), and Rand Paul

(Kentucky). DeMint resigned from the Senate, so there are three left.

Some candidates for Senate – Akin, Mourdock, O’Donnell, and Angle (and

others, like the jerk In Alaska) – might have joined the Senate TP

caucus, but those assholes lost their elections in 2010 or 2012. The Tea

Party doesn’t have a significant presence in the Senate – at least not

an organized caucus presence.

Representatives Who Left the Tea Party Caucus (or Never Joined) or Left Congress

Tom Graves (GA), Ralph Hall (TX), Walter Jones (NC), Cynthia Lummis

(WY), and Sue Myrick (NC)  were once listed as members of the TP caucus,

but they apparently left the caucus. Or whatever. Maybe they never

joined. I’m not sure about Tim Scott (SC) and Mike Coffman (CO) – they

might have had tea party leanings but they’re not listed on the Tea

Party Caucus page.

Parker Griffith, Pete Hoekstra, John Shadegg, Todd Tiahrt, and Zach

Wamp might have been members of the TP caucus at one time, but I think

all of them have left Congress.

So I’m ignoring those people.