From John Boehner, addressing the issue of a war between the tea party and the GOP establishment:
There’s not that big a difference between what you call the tea party and your average conservative Republican.
Correct. Not anymore, anyway. There was a war between the establishment and the tea party, but the tea party won a pretty resounding victory. There may still be establishment types and Ted Cruz types in the GOP, but the Republican Party as a whole has adopted the tea party line lock, stock, and extremely smoking barrel. It’s been as total a victory as you’re ever likely to see in the real world.
There are always going to be candidates who are more or less rightward, but that’s just normal politics, not a war. The war is over. Nationally speaking, the Republican Party is now all but indistinguishable from the crowds that rallied to the tea party banner in the spring of 2009.
We have a new comment system! We are now using Coral, from Vox Media, for comments on all new articles. We'd love your feedback.