A few items to run through:
From the NYT: Texas G.O.P. Beats Back Challengers From Right. The story suggests that any losses the Tea Party suffered happened because "establishment" candidates tacked far to the right to survive the challenge:
The success of several Republican incumbents Tuesday suggested to some that the influence of the Tea Party here had waned. But to others, it merely showed that the incumbents had managed to appease Tea Party conservatives by steering farther to the right. Still others said the Tea Party-supported candidates who were successful in ousting incumbents in the state Legislature, or forcing them into runoffs, were a sign of the movement’s continued strength in Texas.
From Slate: A Good Night for Texas Conservatives; a Bad Night for Grifters. The author points out that despite the fact that John Cornyn - our incumbent Senator beat back Tea Party opposition - others weren't so lucky.
From The American Prospect: Why Does the National Media Get Texas So Wrong? This repeats some points made in the previous article and points out the difficulty of determining what "the establishment" refers to in Texas. While the Tea Party may lack a unifying leader, and it does not have the force it had 4 years ago. It's still pretty strong.
From the BBC: Texas: Reports of Tea Party death have been exaggerated. The authors points out that Tea Party candidates did especially well at the local level, and that candidates have learned what it takes to appeal to Tea Party voters. The story also contains the following text that points out how primary elections encourage party polarization by allowing the more extreme primary voters to determine the candidates that appear on the general election ballot:
All of this has the Dallas Morning News's Tod Robberson, a self-proclaimed centrist, lamenting the state's primary system:
In several races, we are going to wind up with an arch-conservative tea party type who wins the primary and will represent the GOP in the general election. And he or she will wind up vying against a hard-left Democrat. It'll be the worst choice to put before voters. But that will be the choice because those two candidates will have done the best job of appealing to the extremists and die-hards within their respective parties. The winner will go to Austin or Washington and probably will do an abysmal job. And then we'll repeat this same process in another two years, adding yet another batch of abysmal, extremist performers to the mix.
Here's a look at the state of the national Tea Party movement. Success in Texas does not lead to success nation-wide necessarily since Texas' political culture is very different from the national political culture.
From the Hill: Tea Party at five: Dawning or dimming? The national movement has not had the same impact that the movement in Texas has had. The recent vote on the debt ceiling is an example:
GOP leadership and establishment business groups have begun pushing back more forcefully against the movement. The fact that both McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) were willing to break with most of their party to help increase the debt ceiling without conditions shows their frustration with the base might have surpassed their fear of it. While there are dozens of Tea Party challengers to incumbent Republicans, only Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) appear to be facing a real threat.
