{"id":14194,"date":"2012-05-15T13:41:57","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T17:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=14194"},"modified":"2012-05-15T18:20:22","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T22:20:22","slug":"gop-establishment-about-to-take-another-hit-in-nebraska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/14194\/gop-establishment-about-to-take-another-hit-in-nebraska\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Establishment About to Take Another Hit in Nebraska?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the 2012 election cycle has progressed, one of the growing memes on the left has been that the Tea Party has lost a lot of the anti-establishment momentum it had in 2010, when it was responsible for electing U.S. Senators like Wisconsin&#8217;s Ron Johnson, Kentucky&#8217;s Rand Paul, and Florida&#8217;s Marco Rubio. The pundits have been a little quick on the trigger finger.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, 35-year Senate veteran Richard Lugar went down to defeat in Indiana at the hands of the Tea Party candidate, State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, a race that we <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/54-state-of-affairs\/906-tea-for-two-richard-lugar-orrin-hatch-and-the-tea-partys-role-in-the-2012-elections\" target=\"_blank\">chronicled<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/9371\/club-for-growth-to-lugar-retire\/\">length<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/13466\/tea-partys-next-stop-indiana\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/13961\/with-time-running-out-lugar-slipping-behind-tea-party-rival-in-indiana\/\" target=\"_blank\">at CFIF<\/a>. Today, voters heading to the polls in Nebraska may deliver a similar shock to the GOP establishment.<\/p>\n<p>The establishment choice, state Attorney General Jon Bruning, has been under fire for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omaha.com\/article\/20120422\/NEWS01\/704229905\/-1#bruning-i-know-right-wrong\" target=\"_blank\">exactly the kind of crony capitalism<\/a> that has come to define Tea Party distaste for business as usual. It was long thought that State Treasurer Don Stenberg &#8212; who enjoyed the support of Jim DeMint&#8217;s Senate Conservatives Fund, FreedomWorks, and the Club for Growth &#8212; would be the conservative alternative to Bruning. But in recent days, Bruning&#8217;s numbers are falling without Stenberg&#8217;s rising proportionately.<\/p>\n<p>The reason is a third candidate, State Senator Deb Fischer, who has recently emerged from relative obscurity thanks to endorsements from Sarah Palin and Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. According to recent polling, there&#8217;s a very real possibility of Fischer pulling off an upset of epic proportions and walking away with the nomination. And while Stenberg&#8217;s supporters aren&#8217;t happy to see their man failing to close, they&#8217;re already suggesting that Fischer would be an acceptable alternative to Bruning and the business as usual he represents.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll have to watch the polls tonight to see how this thing resolves, but one thing&#8217;s for sure: even the worst-case scenario for Tea Partiers (a narrow win by Bruning) would send a powerful message to the GOP establishment in Washington: the Tea Party is here to stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the 2012 election cycle has progressed, one of the growing memes on the left has been that the Tea Party has lost a lot of the anti-establishment momentum it had in 2010, when it was responsible for electing U.S. Senators like Wisconsin&#8217;s Ron Johnson, Kentucky&#8217;s Rand Paul, and Florida&#8217;s Marco Rubio. The pundits have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[841,2336,3539,3408,3540,3407,3405,2632,365,28],"class_list":["post-14194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-elections","tag-2012-senate-races","tag-deb-fischer","tag-don-stenberg","tag-jeff-fortenberry","tag-jon-bruning","tag-nebraska","tag-republican-establishment","tag-sarah-palin","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14194"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14217,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14194\/revisions\/14217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}