Newark, DELAWARE – The morning after Tea Party movement darling Christine O’Donnell made political mincemeat out of Karl Rove’s and George H.W. Bush’s favored GOPer Mike Castle in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, the News Journal here reflected reaction in the state – and beyond:
Its headline screeched: “Anti-establishment insurgency rocks Delaware…O’DONNELL IN SHOCKER…TEA PARTY-BACKED OUTSIDER STUNS CASTLE IN GOP SENATE RACE”
The Tea Party movement that grew with considerable help from Obama administration bungling, an ailing economy, big bucks from the right-wing Koch brothers, free promo from Fox News and talk show hosts, had enjoyed other victories but this was the biggie. The Washington Post’s EJ Dionne, Jr., one of the best political columnists around today, wrote of the death of moderate Republicanism.
But it really was more than that. Moderate Republicans were already becoming as hard to find as pay telephones.
What REALLY died was “compassionate conservatism” – the notion that conservatives could reach out and become accessible to those who might not agree with them, convince those who felt they were against them that they were wrong and even indulge in compromise for broader goals.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.