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From the NY Times
WASHINGTON — For the past two years, Republican senators facing re-election have very deliberately spent millions of dollars, hired multiple consultants and cast scores of conservative votes with one goal in mind: avoiding the embarrassing primary conflagrations that befell their party in 2010 and 2012 and cost Republicans a chance at taking back the Senate.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is one of several Republican senators facing a primary challenge from the right.
It has not worked. Despite their careful efforts, some of the best-known and most influential Republicans in the Senate have been unable to shake threats from the right and have attracted rivals who portray these lawmakers as a central part of the problem in Washington.
In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, the party’s Senate leader, is fending off a charismatic and wealthy conservative challenger. In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate’s most reliably conservative voices on foreign policy, is being painted by primary opponents as a veritable clone of President Obama.
In Tennessee, Tea Party activists have vowed to take out Lamar Alexander, the veteran senator, former cabinet officer and two-time presidential candidate. “Senator Alexander has never been a true conservative,” said Ben Cunningham, president of the Nashville Tea Party. “His support for the amnesty bill has caused great problems for us,” he said, referring to the Senate immigration bill. “He is at best a moderate.”
Tea Party candidates have also emerged in races against Democratic incumbents in Alaska — Joe Miller, who beat Senator Lisa Murkowski in her last primary, has resurfaced — Colorado, Louisiana and North Dakota, and for open seats in Georgia, Iowa and South Dakota. Democrats hope they can benefit from a divided Republican electorate.
The Republican incumbents and party officials say they have learned from the hard lessons of the past when Tea Party candidates from the right were ignored or dismissed, only to prevail in primaries and lose in general elections. They have plans to avoid becoming the next Richard G. Lugar or Robert Bennett, two senior senators who were stunned by losses before the general election.
As such, the races are emerging as the real test of the latest Republican strategy to deal with insurgent candidates and of the power of the Tea Party in 2014. The result could dictate not only the future influence of the Tea Party in Congress, but also the ability of Republicans to hold on to or gain seats.
Continued at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/us/politics/gop-senators-fail-to-head-off-tea-party-rivals.html?hp&_r=0
Note, key to the future of the GOP and conservatism, is whether moderate conservatives and independents will to turn out to vote in 2014.
