Last night’s elections demonstrate conservatives have no place in this party

Source: Conservative Review | August 31, 2016 | Daniel Horowitz

When conservatives are forced to find solace in the fact that one of their few incumbents wasn’t defeated in a primary and take that as good news, it’s a sign we are strangers in our own party.

Last night was the final major primary night of this election cycle. After Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 34%) managed to win reelection yet again, it has become clear that the elites within the party can stab conservatives in the back on a daily basis and still win reelection with a 100-percent success rate. Aside from two anomalous redistricting circumstances in Virginia and North Carolina, not a single incumbent Republican has been defeated … except for one of our own: Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan. (A, 91%).

Let’s start with the good news first:

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After being the subject of hundreds of thousands of dollars in attack ads from special interests, such as the RightWayPAC and the Western Growers Association, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. (B, 83%) cruised to victory with 70% of the vote against his primary challenger. At least the Huelskamp dynamic is not repeating itself elsewhere. We can now celebrate the fact that we can keep the few good members left in the House.

Now for the bad news:

…..

There you have it, folks. Conservatives have failed to knock off a single incumbent House or Senate member this year, failed to nominate a single conservative to an open Senate seat, and have won very few open House seats.

Primaries are all about name recognition and name ID is all about money or reality TV status. This is why Donald Trump won the presidential primary after receiving billions of dollars in endless free and exclusive media coverage. And that is the same reason why Rubio, McCain, Rooney, and Jones won last night and why the establishment is winning down the ballot. There is no great outsider’s insurgency taking place. It’s all about name ID – as has been the case in every election.   Sadly, ninety-five percent of the time the factor of name recognition will favor the non-conservative candidate. What is so frustrating is that the establishment runs their candidates as movement conservatives and uses their superior firepower to promote our message… until the primaries are over.

Once again, it is clear conservatives have no future in the party as it is currently constituted. Most of those elected in primaries this year will do nothing to combat Hillary Clinton in Congress if she becomes president. If Republicans lose the general election, conservatives have two choices: either pursue wholesale reform of the primary process or start a new party.

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