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But surprisingly perhaps, this week's big victory for the party machine was not greeted with overt displays of jubilation at Republican HQ in Washington. "It's more like relief," was how one senior official described the mood.

That note of caution raises important questions about whether the Republican mainstream is really beginning to win the argument.

The first question is whether the Tea Party's influence over the last four years has ensured that today's "mainstream" Republican candidate is actually running significantly to the right on the major issues such as tax, immigration, welfare and spending.

So when John Boehner - the Republican Speaker of the House who has not hidden his frustration with the intransigent right - says there's "not that big a difference" between Tea Partiers and the average conservative Republican, it's not just an appeal for unity. It also happens to be the truth.

That's how a candidate like Joni Ernst - a Harley Davidson-riding, gun-loving former soldier who says her experience "castrating hogs" on her Iowa farm will be useful in "fixing" Washington - can find herself being endorsed by both Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin.

The big bind for Republicans is that while tacking right might well help them re-take the Senate, recent electoral history suggests it will poison their prospects at the general election in 2016.

The voters who turn out in the mid-term voters are much older, whiter and more Republican-leaning than in a general election. In the 2010 mid-terms, 77 per cent of voters were white, the same percentage of whites in the US population in 1983.

The danger - as Whit Ayres, a highly experienced Republican pollster, warns - is that a resounding Republican victory in 2014, thanks to a favourable electorate voting in Republican-leaning states, risks the party drawing the "all the wrong lessons".

The same old tone and policies on immigration, welfare and social issues, that broadly appeals to the America of 1983 is not going to wash with the more liberal, multi-cultural and socially tolerant America that will vote in 2016.

Unfortunately, acknowledging this reality - as many moderate Republicans do in private - is not the same as acting up on it.

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Republicans need a positive message to win back the White House in 2016

Republicans kick off the state GOP convention in Kaneohe
GOP candidates for state and national office fired up hundreds of enthusiastic supporters in preparation for upcoming elections.

By: KITV

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Republicans kick off the state GOP convention in Kaneohe - Video

WASHINGTON - Republicans who hope to wrest control of the U.S. Senate from Democrats see medical care delays for veterans as a potent line of attack and are devising ways to keep the issue in the news in the months leading up to the November congressional elections.

They are planning a long summer of investigations and hearings on problems at the Veterans Affairs agency to highlight what they say is a pattern of mismanagement in President Barack Obama's administration.

Republicans have tread lightly so far to avoid appearing callous in exploiting an issue involving allegations that veterans died while waiting for VA care. But lawmakers, aides and campaign strategists in the party say they are now ready to go on the offensive, attacking Obama for his slow response to the scandal.

They say the VA care delays and alleged cover-ups are another blunder for Obama, equal to the botched roll out of his healthcare reform law last year, the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya and the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service.

"This is part of a larger theme that we've been saying for a year now, that voters don't trust the government," said Brook Hougesen, spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Just as Obamacare called into question Democrats' accountability, this does the same."

The scandal is national in scope and focuses on a group that is revered by lawmakers and voters regardless of party. The 21 million U.S. veterans make up a sizeable political constituency on their own and nearly 9 million use VA health care.

The VA Inspector General now is investigating 26 locations across the United States, which aides and strategists say will provide a drum beat of news from local media that will fuel voter outrage in battleground states.

Paul Sracic, who heads the political science department at Youngstown State University in Ohio, said the scandal is dangerous for Democrats because it allows Republicans to link outrage over the VA health care problems to voter discontent over the "Obamacare" reforms.

"If Republicans were writing a script for the summer they couldn't have made up a better story," said Sracic. "The last thing Democrats want is to be still talking about this after Labor Day."

Democrats say they are focused on a strong response to fixing the VA problems. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said Congress should consider a broad restructuring of the way Veterans Affairs provides medical care.

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US Republicans map campaign attack plan on veterans scandal

Jerry Brown: Republicans to Blame for California Wildfires
ABC #39;s This Week, May 18, 2014.

By: National Review

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Jerry Brown: Republicans to Blame for California Wildfires - Video

Will the Democrats and Republicans Ever Agree on Anything?
The Party of No - Inside the US government shutdown: Whatever happened to the Republican Party? Tea Party logic and obstinancy has come to define politics in. This TV commercial video clip...

By: henry

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Will the Democrats and Republicans Ever Agree on Anything? - Video