Establishment Republicans have been happy to wield the Tea Party as a "rhetorical cudgel" against President Obama and his party, says Gabriel Winant in Salon. The trouble is, by making Tea Partiers a symbol of their own legitimacy, the GOP elite entrusted their future to a band of outsiders. Now, the establishment is busily trying to "wrest control of the party back from these ruffians."
It's happening in North Carolina, where Republican leaders are trying to derail Tea Party candidate Tim D'Annunzio's challenge of vulnerable Democratic incumbent Rep. Larry Kissell by pointing out that D'Annunzio has had "run-ins with the law" and once claimed to be the messiah. Similar tensions have surfaced in the Kentucky primary battle between Trey Greyson and ultimate winner Rand Paul, and in the Nevada fight between Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle and Republican front-runner Sue Lowden to see who will challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Has the GOP turned on the Tea Party? Here, an excerpt:
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