Reality check time for these guys. I guess it's time for 'em to put their money where their mouth is...this article shows that even conservative voters can see the Tea Party for what it is..EXTREMIST. It's pretty bad when you are too conservative to even win support of conservatives. Problem with these guys is that they are so far right the are reactionary...and that is as bad as radical when it comes to leadership in the government...so, in reality they are largely unelectable. But one thing's for sure, if they even hope to stand a chance, they're gonna have to dig into those pockets..and spend more time campaigning at home instead of following the "Palin Whine Fest 2010" around the country. I for one hope they stick around though...because they provide a great service to the country, they split the conservative vote.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Tea Party candidates face reality of politics

Published March 29th, 2010
By NEIL KING JR. And DOUGLAS BELKIN

Jason Meade of New Franklin, Ohio, is among hundreds of political hopefuls looking to ride the "tea party" wave to Washington this year. Like most, he's finding it a tough go.

Mr. Meade is running in the Republican primary in Ohio's 13th Congressional District against five candidates while juggling a 50-hour workweek at a plastics plant. His headquarters "is in the second-floor living room in the corner where the computer is," he says. His campaign has $3,000 to its name.

Mr. Meade's experience goes to the heart of a debate roiling the nascent movement: Should it back fervent long shots who hew to its antigovernment views, or should it rally around more traditional candidates, even if they don't perfectly reflect the movement's distaste for incumbents, taxes and spending?

Nor has a surge in Republican candidates translated into higher contributions. On average, Republican primary challengers have raised 37% less than Democratic counterparts, Federal Election Commission records show. Republican candidates for Congress have raised $294 million through 2009, nearly $30 million less than the Democrats, even though twice as many Republicans are running.

"The problem with the tea-party movement is it has inspired too many candidates," says Patrick Hughes, a candidate with tea-party backing who was trounced by Rep. Mark Kirk in the crowded Illinois Republican Senate primary. "The movement will fail if it can't coalesce behind candidates who can win."

Organizers hope public anger over President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul will help tea-party candidates who fiercely opposed the plan. Many are now promising to help repeal the law if they win, and are using the bill to try to drum up support from donors.

The movement began last year as a backlash against the growth of the government, federal bailouts and the national debt. The next big test comes in May, when 10 states hold primaries, including the tea-party hotbeds of Indiana and Ohio. The Republican establishment is watching to see if tea-party voters fall in line behind the national party's candidates.

Handicappers are predicting heavy Democratic losses in November. Democrats hope the tea-party surge will soften that blow by diluting Republican campaign coffers and pulling mainstream conservatives to the right, imperiling their chances in the general election.

"This is great news for us," says Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC has launched a Web site to highlight divisions in the GOP primaries.

Republicans say the movement has fired up the party's base, a trend that has Democrats worried about a widening enthusiasm gap. The weekend protest in Nevada, with a crowd estimated at about 7,000, is a sign of the movement's ability to rally its troops.

Thousands more are expected at a nationwide series of rallies culminating in a tax-day protest April 15 on the National Mall in Washington.

The question is being asked as homegrown candidates confront brute realities of politics: reluctant donors, limited party support, inexperienced staffers and the uphill fight against incumbents

Grassroots support remains vigorous, as evidenced by the thousands of tea-party activists who gathered Saturday in Searchlight, Nev., to protest the health-care law and urge the ouster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Yet despite thronging primary races across the U.S., true tea-party candidates have stumbled at the polls. In the March 2 Texas primary, 18 incumbent Republican House members faced multiple challengers, including a flock of tea-party faithful. The incumbents won handily, with only one garnering below 60% of the vote.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed 29% of voters have a positive view of the tea-party cause. That fervor has helped draw a wave of newcomers to seek public office. There are now 617 more Republicans running in congressional primaries than ran in the last midterm election, in 2006, according to the Federal Elections Commission. That's up 134%.

The number of Democrats in primaries remains almost unchanged from 2006, when the party gained 30 seats in the House and six in the Senate.

Some pollsters see perils ahead for the Republicans if tea-party candidates forge on after the primaries to run as independents in the general election. Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who surveyed 1,500 likely voters in late February, found that 46% of independents said they'd vote for an unnamed third party that prioritized cutting spending, far more than would vote for either a Democrat or a Republican.

Few House races are stirring more tea-party fervor than the sprawling 5th District in southern Virginia, where seven Republican candidates are battling for the right to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello.

Five of the Republicans claim allegiance to the tea-party mantle: two transplanted real-estate moguls, a pilot, a teacher and an Internet entrepreneur.

"It's a train wreck, no doubt about it," says Mark Lloyd, founder of the Lynchburg Tea Party and a leading figure in the Virginia insurgency. "My proposal is we give everyone a tire iron and have them work it out in the parking lot."

State Sen. Robert Hurt has emerged as the front-runner for the June 8 Republican primary. He has high name recognition and a fat wallet. Donors and political-action committees gave him $293,458 by the end of December, more than four times as much as the other Republican candidates combined.

Tea-party activists are torn. Mr. Hurt voted for a tax increase in 2004 to avoid a shutdown of the Virginia government. He is also an elected official favored by the Republican Party—both black marks for the movement.

Yet at a packed debate last month, one created for tea-party activists, Mr. Hurt came in a close second in a straw poll. The winner, by just two votes out of the 246 cast, was real-estate developer Jim McKelvey, who lent his organization $500,000 to jump-start a campaign that has so far received little outside financial support.

The key issue, says Mr. Hurt's campaign strategist, Chris LaCivita, is who's best positioned to take on Mr. Perriello, the Democrat. Movement activists "know that if the tea party has no electoral success, then the movement itself will fold," he says. "They are waking up to the electability issue."

Local tea-party organizer Nigel Coleman agrees. "What we have to remember is that primaries are when we decide who is the most likely to win in November," Mr. Coleman says. The Virginia tea-party groups are still debating whether to endorse a candidate in the primary.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, viewed by many as a force behind the tea-party movement, says he sees signs of growing pragmatism in the ranks. "We have to be willing to take the 80% conservative over the 100% conservative," he says, "especially when we know that the 80% conservative stands the best chance of beating the 100% liberal."

As evidence, he points to the tea-party fueled election in Massachusetts of Sen. Scott Brown—hardly a hard-line conservative—and to the March 2 Texas Republican primary.

Texas gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina excited the movement when she shot out of obscurity last year, briefly rattling the campaigns of Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson. But she won just 18% of the vote, placing a distant third. Ms. Medina lost momentum when she told an interviewer that the U.S. government may have had a hand in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In Indiana, another inexperienced tea-party candidate, Richard Behney, was hurt by a gaffe: He told supporters of his Senate campaign that he was "cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show" if the government didn't rein in spending.

For all their fervor, many activists are taking their cue from that most elemental of indicators—money. That issue is on display in the 8th District of Tennessee. A half-dozen Republican hopefuls are facing off, including Donn Janes, a computer-network engineer running under the tea-party mantle. Mr. Janes, who has struggled to raise cash, now plans to run as an independent in the general election no matter what happens in the August primary. The other tea-party hopefuls in the race also have drawn few donors.

Farmer and gospel singer Stephen Fincher, running as a traditional Republican, has garnered attention from GOP brass in Washington and $675,000 in donations. That momentum has siphoned support from Mr. Janes and other tea-party hopefuls.

"That Steven Fincher has been anointed by the Republican Party is anathema to some folks in the tea party," says David Nance, who heads the local Gibson County Tea Party. "But personally, I think he is the best candidate and the one most likely to win in November."

In north Texas, former telecom executive Steve Clark poured more than $600,000 of his own money into a tea-party campaign that lagged far behind the incumbent, 86-year-old Ralph Hall, the oldest member of the House and a Democrat until he switched parties in 2004. Rep. Hall won with 57% of the vote to Mr. Clark's 29%.

Mr. Meade, the Ohio tea-party candidate, says he had his political awakening last year after a thicket of regulations deterred him and a friend from opening a cigar store.

His candidacy, launched about a year ago, is still getting started and remains more rebellious than Republican. Mr. Meade says he has frequently found himself talking to groups of two or three professed Democrats trying to persuade them they are actually conservatives. The little money he's raised is mostly from friends and family. His wife, a Starbucks barista, is the campaign treasurer.

Mr. Meade strongly opposed the health-care overhaul, but in February he admitted he hadn't yet thought out where he stood on key trade issues that affect his manufacturing-heavy district, which includes Akron. "I'm going to have to look into that," he said. "I'm not sure what the Constitution says about that."

Some candidates acknowledge the movement's limitations while also seeking its support. Former Fox News commentator Angela McGlowan, one of the most prominent tea-party faithful, is running for Congress in Mississippi's 1st District. She is casting a wide net.

The onetime staffer for former Sen. Bob Dole boasts of personal ties to former Bush political adviser Karl Rove and Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, something few tea-party candidates would do. She even cites how, as an African-American, she hopes to draw support from Democrats.

Ms. McGlowan faces stiff competition from state Sen. Alan Nunnele, who has won endorsements from prominent Republicans, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Mr. Nunnele raised more than $400,000 before Ms. McGlowan even launched her campaign.

"I have what none of the other candidates in the race have, which is crossover appeal," she says.
—T.W. Farnam contributed to this article

Tea-Party Candidates Discover Brute Realities of Campaigning - WSJ.com