Calling the Republican Primaries
Posted on May 14, 2014
Originally Published in WSJ
The Republican primary season is starting to resemble a big football pool.
It’s not the issues that matter so much. It’s who picks the winners and who picks the losers.
Ben Sasse beat Shane Osborne in the Nebraska Senate primary. The two candidates agreed on every issue and would have voted the same way if elected.
But the tea party backed Sasse and so there is a perception that it went one up in its football pool.
The tea party is going to lose a lot more than it wins in the coming months. Sen. Mitch McConnell will win. So will Pat Roberts. And Lindsey Graham. And Mike Simpson. The list goes on.
In Oklahoma, the tea party is backing state House Speaker T.W. Shannon over Rep. James Lankford. There is no difference between them on issues. Zero. Zilch. In fact, the tea party backed Lankford when he was first elected.
But ideas don’t matter in this primary season--only who wins and who loses. And, more important, who picked the winners and who picked the losers.