Tea party

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Early signs are that it will be a good night for the Republicans and an awful one for Obama and his agenda

From our UK edition

It is early in the night but things are looking good for the Republicans. Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American son of a bartender, has won his Senate race in Florida at a canter and confirmed his status as a rising star in the party. Rand Paul, a committed libertarian, has won in Kentucky. While it looks like the Republicans have also won in the Senate races in Arkansas, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Although, it is worth noting that Christine O’Donnell—the eccentric Tea Party backed candidate—lost in Delaware in a contest that one would expect the Republicans to win in these circumstances. In the House, the Republicans seem almost certain to gain control. 538 is currently projecting a 55 seat Republican pick-up.

James Forsyth

Republicans take control of the House, Democrats cling on in Senate

From our UK edition

The Democrats have lost control of the House of Representatives. The Republican party looks to have picked up more than 60 seats in the lower house, slightly more than they were expected to, and they will have a comfortable majority there. The Democrats have lost six seats in the Senate but held onto their majority in the upper chamber. These results are a blow to President Obama. The loss of the Democratic majority in the House will force him to compromise to get things done.  The results do seem to be a rejection of his agenda, 56 percent of voters in the exit poll felt that government is now doing too much. A Republican controlled House will also be able to use its subpoena power to make life difficult for the White House.

David Blackburn

Victory, but there’s little triumphalism as Republicans look to court America

From our UK edition

Hysteria has lapsed into disaffection: it was a bleak night for President Obama. But, despite the apparent immediacy of a ‘conservative moment’, there is caution in Republican circles this morning: both Clinton and Reagan won from similar positions in 1982 and 1994. The G.O.P's leadership knows that elections are not won from the extremes, as Barack Obama has discovered to his cost, and it is trying to calm the party’s often excitable fringe, which will be no easy task if Rand Paul's 'Tea Party tidal wave' is anything to go by. Ben Brogan recently highlighted the G.O.P’s growing ‘Stop Palin’ campaign, and David Frum adds his voice again.

Daniel Korski

Obama’s Hurt Locker

From our UK edition

The backlash that Barack Obama is now experiencing seemed almost impossible when the neophyte senator swept into the White House. It was, in fact, predicted by some. In 2007 when Barack Obama was but an ambitious Illinois senator, American defence expert Kori Shake penned an essay called the Coming Crisis of High Expectations. It was about how the EU and the US would inevitably slide apart - but its message was broader. Beware of exorbitant expectations, she seemed to be saying. Reality hurts. How much it hurts will become clear today. It looks like a House of Representatives-sized hurt but not a Senate-shaped one. Harry Reid clung on to his Nevada Senate seat, and California will be Democrat-run.

Monday

James Forsyth

A conservative revival in the States

From our UK edition

Election night two years ago was not a good night for the GOP. Not only had it lost the White House but also all those predictions about how social trends and demographics were making America more Democrat appeared to be coming true.  In the south, Virginia and North Carolina shifted to the Democratic column. In the mid-West, Indiana went for the Democratic candidates for the first time since 1964. I was watching the results come in that night with an informal adviser to the McCain campaign and that evening it was hard to see how the Republicans could get to 270 in future with the upper south moving into swing state territory. But just two years on, the Democrats are about to get hit by a Republican wave.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Reading the Tea Party

From our UK edition

Copyright BBC Tea Party America with Andrew Neil, Renegade Pictures for the BBC This Tuesday we will find out the electoral strength of the Tea Party, the insurgent political movement that has already toppled several favourites of the Republican Establishment. From this side of the Atlantic, it has been hard to get a handle on the Tea Party. Does it represent a right turn in US politics or is it just a rag-tag group whose policies and candidates are just too extreme to be electable? To answer this question, Andrew Neil headed to the States this summer; travelling to the states where the Tea Party has made the most impact. His documentary on it airs on BBC 2 at 7PM on Monday, there’s a clip from it above.

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Cameron the ‘Tea Party Tory’

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s cuts agenda is winning him some unusual praise from the American hard Right — from the sort of people the British political class considers beyond the pale. For instance, Pat Buchanan, the former presidential candidate and hardliner extraordinaire, is so impressed by Britain’s austerity measures that he has affectionately labelled Cameron the ‘Tea Party Tory’. He writes, 'Casting aside the guidance of Lord Keynes — government-induced deficits are the right remedy for recessions — Cameron has bet his own and his party’s future on the new austerity. He is making Maggie Thatcher look like Tip O’Neill.' I wonder how Steve Hilton would feel about this particular bit of branding.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Obama 2.0

From our UK edition

The piece in the New York Times magazine this weekend on the Obama presidency illustrates how far he has fallen. A large chunk of it is devoted to whether or not he can win re-election, something that most of his supporters used to take for granted.  Significantly, the Obama White House itself is admitting that things could have been done better: “While proud of his record, Obama has already begun thinking about what went wrong — and what he needs to do to change course for the next two years. He has spent what one aide called “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0” with his new interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, and his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

There’s No British Tea Party: Here’s Why

From our UK edition

More on Christine O'Donnell's stunning victory in the Delaware GOP Senate primary in due course but it's worth pointing out that such a triumph almost certainly could not happen in Britain. Not even in our new primary-friendly Tory party. Because most of the contests called primaries in Britain are really forms of caucus, not proper primaries and even the so-called "open primaries" that have been held by postal ballot are actually only semi-open. In each case voters are offered a choice of candidates who have been approved by Tory HQ. It is not, in other words a truly open process and consequently it's exceedingly difficult for a grass-roots rebellion to take place. This is one reason why there is no British Tea Party.