Midterms 2014: Crushing the Tea Party

These are photos by Win McNamee from the Jennmar manufacturing facility in Winchester, Kentucky.  Maybe these guy have been “Team Mitch” all the way. The “hard baked” quality however suggests how much the Republican calculus is different this time around.

Coal, Guns, Freedom … and DC fixture McConnell? One indication a marriage or graft has taken place, is the discrepancy in stickers. Up top, the black and white has that hard contrast, that bluntness, the urgency of freedom compared to the generic (which campaign is it this time?) red, white and blue below.

If the Republicans succeed in winning the Senate tomorrow, however, it will be because the Republican Party’s “blazer-and-slacks wearing establishment,” as CNN described it, succeeded in (Mitch’s words) crushing the Tea Party.

(photos: Win McNamee/Getty Images caption 1: Kentucky voters listen as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a campaign rally October 22, 2014 in Grayson, Kentucky. With less than two weeks remaining until the midterm elections, McConnell remains locked in a tight race with U.S. Senate Democratic candidate and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. additional caption info: Employees listen as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a campaign rally at the Jennmar manufacturing facility October 22, 2014 in Winchester, Kentucky.)