We Can Only Hope

(Cartoon by Jack Ohman, published 5/2714 and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

We can only hope that Jack Ohman is as prescient a political pundit  as he is a skilled cartoonist.  With any luck at all, we'll have the results on the news shortly on the various state primaries held yesterday.  It's too early for me to check the confirmed results, but here's what McClatchy DC noted yesterday:

Amid what could be the tea party’s last hope for victory this spring, Mississippi’s neck-and-neck Republican Senate race Tuesday between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran and tea party-backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel, has the potential to irrevocably impact the anti-establishment group, which has caused a rift in the Republican Party. ...

The biggest — and maybe last — hope could be Tuesday’s close race in Mississippi, where the anti-Washington group has backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel, hoping to maintain some of their fire from 2010 — when the tea party swept elections nationwide.
 McDaniel, with backers like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, embodies the movement’s prototypical candidate. Removing incumbent six-term Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., would give the tea party further sway over the future of the divided Republican Party.

In California, Democratic incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown leads both Tim Donnelly, a state Assemblyman and tea party conservative, and Republican Neel Kashkari. Donnelly and Kashkari are about even in the polls. The top two finishers advance to the November election.
 Local tea party-backed state Sen. Scott Beason faces national tea party-backed Chad Mathis in Alabama’s primary against five other Republican candidates to replace Rep. Spencer Bachus. But a tea party victory isn’t likely as both candidates trail state Rep. Paul DeMarco.   [Emphasis added]

I'm not familiar enough with Mississippi politics (nor do I want to be) but that really does appear to be the key test for the Tea Party.  McClatchy appears to be predicting victory for the establishment Republican in Alabama and a toss-up in California.  California will return Democrat Jerry Brown to the Governor's Mansion, but a victory for the Tea Party candidate in the primary could keep the Republican Party out of state office for years, something I am not comfortable with.  I want a two-party system ... it keeps the Democrats a little more focused.

If all three Tea Party candidates lose, then we will hopefully see the last of Sarah Palin and Michele  Bachmann and the Republican office holders won't have to waste their time and energy keeping that tiny sliver of the American electorate satisfied.  They will be able to and will have to sit down at the negotiating table with Democrats in Congress and the White House.  That means some things might actually get done by this Congress and the next.

An old woman can dream ....

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/02/229133/tea-party-pins-2014-hope-to-tight.html#storylink=cpy