POLITICS - And the Tea Party Movement

"Obama and Democrats beat the Tea Party Movement in Florida" by Zennie62, San Francisco Chronicle 4/13/2010

See: tea party movement, democrats v republicans, Florida special election, palm beach county

As this blogger wrote earlier in the week, the Tea Party Movement is a media creation with little real bite, but who's life is consistently maintained by a drum beat of stories by Fox News and CNN. Neither cable network will tell you when a Democrat beats a Tea Party-assisted candidate, and that's what happened Tuesday night.

But the real story is one that's to be expected: one of demographics. It's not enough to be a Democrat or a Republican, the candidate has to match the people voting for that person. Ted Deutch did; Ed Lynch didn't.

Democrat Ted Deutch soundly beat Republican Ed Lynch in the 19th Congressional District special election in Broward County, Florida. It was Ed Lynch, 44, who ran on the idea that Washington was "broken" and the "Career politicians" couldn't fit it. Moreover, The Tea Party pointed to this election as one to get behind.

The blog Red County blog entry headline on April 11th read "TEA Party Working for Ed Lynch for Congress in Florida's 19th District" and Dr. Richard Swier, the blog author wrote "Tow the conservative line or else may be the message sent if TEA Party favorite Edward Lynch wins this special election."

So what's the message sent now?

The message is that the Tea Party Movement isn't strong enough to turn an unknown Republican candidate in a district that had 65 percent of its voters back Barack Obama for President, and is replacing a very popular democrat in Rep. Robert Wexler.

Moreover, the 19th Congressional District of Florida has a strong Jewish population. According to the Sun Sentinel, Ted Deutch was firmly behind Jewish causes and lives just west of Boca Raton which is part of Palm Beach County and that's 70 percent of the voting base. Ted Deutch is a lawyer; Ed Lynch is a contractor.

Ed Lynch was outspent and outnumbered. 10,000 Tea Party Movement phone calls didn't help. And where was the anger over the Obama Health Care plan? It never showed up. Ed Lynch was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This not just proves that the Tea Party Movement is overblown, but that you have to pay attention to election demographics.