The Tea Party is dead.

It’s so dead that even politicians who clearly do not share its ethos…co-opt the message and run with it on the campaign trail.  In fact, no viable candidate can be caught running an ad that reflects anything counter to the message of the Tea Party in GOP primaries.

The latest example is Sid Dinsdale who is running for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska.

When listening to the debates in Washington you will find two clear, yet divergent, paths within the Republican Party.  They manifest in a number of specific policy differences, one of which is the debate over raising the debt ceiling.

Every Republican politician under the sun runs for office decrying the excessive spending, growth of government, and amassment of debt.  Yet, when most of them come to Washington, they jettison that message and adopt Obama’s position on the debt ceiling, thereby obviating our only leverage to reduce the size of government.

Luckily, in the case of Sid Dinsdale, we caught him in a moment of candor even on the campaign trail.  He said very plainly in a news interview that he would “always” vote to raise the debt limit.

There you have it plain and simple.

Several conservative groups, including my employer, the Madison Project, pointed out Dinsdale’s words to the voters of Nebraska.  Instead of being man enough to vouch for his position, he went ballistic and fired back in an ad complaining about special interest with dark money lying about him.  He then offers this ridiculous and vacuous promise, as one potential Senator, to “stop wasteful deficit spending so we don’t have to raise the debt ceiling ever again.”

Well, the only thing “dark” and in the mold of Washington special interests is Dinsdale’s disingenuous and contradictory view on the debt ceiling.  Everything we do is out in the open with full disclosure and consistent points of view on all of the issues.

It’s real simple.  Any would-be Senator will take office next January.  The debt ceiling comes due two months later.  We can talk about cutting spending all we want, and indeed Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul have, in the past, introduced amendments to balance the budget.  But once they are summarily voted down by the Democrats, the only leverage we have to stop Obama’s outrage is to not give him a blank check.  That is the commonsense view of the country class.

Sadly, the GOP ruling class, which is comprised of every K Street and Wall Street special interest, has peddled Obama’s irresponsible lie about default.  As we’ve explained many times, it is simply not true, and particularly ridiculous given our record-high level of revenue (all taken out of the private economy.  What is the purpose of electing yet another Senator who unilaterally announces to Obama that he will always give him a blank check in the end – even before negotiations commence?  Yet, Dinsdale refuses to run an ad defending this coherent, yet wrongheaded, view.

Why isn’t Sid Dinsdale man enough to run on the veracity of his views?

I think we know the answer.  He knows that the voters won’t buy his real views, and that is why he is resorting to empty rhetoric about outside groups.  That is why he is obfuscating his views.  And that is why he refuses to answer the legitimate question about his multiple donations to liberal Democrats running against Republicans.

This race is a microcosm of what is unfolding across America.  Our views resonate with the public – to the extent that the other side has to co-opt our views and hide their own.

Voters have a clear choice.  They can elect these clowns and spend the next six years lamenting the mistake or they could vote out the political class.