Mixed results for state's tea party candidates

WASHINGTON - The new and still-evolving tea party movement appears to have had a mixed impact on Tuesday's Republican primary in New York State, several of its local leaders and political analysts said Wednesday.

Tea party voters helped outspoken Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino handily win the race for governor, rebelling against the New York GOP and Conservative Party candidate Rick Lazio, they said.

But those voters also apparently failed to provide the winning edge to tea party favorites in Republican races for the two U.S. Senate seats and in a handful of House contests - including one on Long Island's East End to face Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton).

"The tea party did very well statewide with Carl Paladino," said Frank Seabrook, a blogger whose Suffolk County Liberty Report serves as a clearinghouse for tea party news.

"We did not do so well locally here in Suffolk County."

Paladino is on the roll of tea party victors in national political commentary, joining Christine O'Donnell, who defeated GOP-backed Mike Castle in the Delaware Senate primary Tuesday, along with a half a dozen others from earlier primary contests.

But even though in the national political narrative this is the year of the tea party, pollster Michael Dawidziak cautioned that evaluating the impact of the movement is dicey. He called the tea party "a collective anger of the silent majority rising to the surface," a movement that seeks to avoid becoming a rigid political party.

And that means they will vote different ways in different races, or not vote at all, he said.

That appeared to be the case in the New York primary.

Paladino was not a tea party candidate, though he courted its members, Dawidziak said.

"I don't believe Carl Paladino had strictly tea party support," said Seabrook, noting his victory margin, which he said "reflects a mandate for change and reaches across Republican rank and file."

Former CIA officer Gary Berntsen of Port Jefferson, however, did stand as a tea party candidate who actually turned over his campaign to a tea party leader, Stephen Flanagan, founder of the Conservative Society of America in Deer Park.

Berntsen boasted that he and Flanagan had organized 40 tea parties across the state to work for him. But he still lost all but six counties of his more politically mainstream and experienced rival Jay Townsend.

Flanagan blamed the loss on the new ballot, which he said confused many voters.

But Mark Barie, founder of the Upstate New York Tea Party, said Berntsen never came to Plattsburgh to woo his 1,000 members.

Barie also blamed Doug Hoffman, the tea party favorite from the special election in the 23rd District, for running a poor campaign in his loss Tuesday.

"Even a great tea party group is not going to make up for a mismanaged campaign," Barie said. "The political rules still apply."

Meanwhile, in the race to face Bishop, Chris Cox, who won backing from local tea party groups, came in third, with just about 5,000 votes.

"Tea parties here on Long Island are faced with the realization that they alone cannot carry a candidate," Seabrook said. "They can be a swing vote and put a candidate over the top."

Flanagan said, "Chris Cox was not a tea party guy."

But Cox political adviser Jim Teese turned the tables on the political skills of the tea party members backing Cox.

"In all fairness to my tea party friends," Teese said, "I think they overestimated their practical impact as opposed to their emotional impact."