and store that party to dedicated service to that proposition. i think that this class is going to be quite silar to the class of 1992. and the class of 1992, the republican congressional class of 1992, was the cultural changing class that resulted in the majority of 94. they re just going to happen to come and get their majority at the same time they change the culture. so the question is, who changes who, right? you re g st of saying, look, they come in, you ve got to deal with the structure the way it is. the senateorks the way the senate works. the hoe works the way the house works. well, i don t accept that. all right. i don t think you have to w ac is. the culture is a problem in the house and the senate. but it is the way it is. here, i think you get caught up in personalities when really what you re talking about is issues and poli. when dick armey and i were the majority leaders in the house and the senate respectively in the late 90s, we had a democrat president,
work with them and to turn it into positive energy. and i beeve they will. i think that john boehner, as the next speaker, will do that and i think mitch mcconnell and jon kyl will do it in the senate. congressman, when you hear the word we need to co-op them when they come in, what does that say to you and what do you see the role of these so-called tea party candidattyes inside t republican party, assuming they re going to caucus with republicans? my own view is that was a bad choice of words because you were talking about a group of people whose necks stiffen imdiately upon hearing that word. they are independent-minded people who really have no particular appreciation for the performance of either party in the paste several years. they want to run for office in order to change that. for the most part they have understood that our path to a position in washington is through the republican party, given our small government values, but we re here to rerm
when are you going to begin to toss some of your weaker democratic candidates overboard in trms of money? we don t think we have weak democratic candidates right now. okay. you didn t expect an answer to that. clearly, we will look at and if there are candidates that are very substantially behind and they can t make it, clearly we ll have to make some tough judgments. but with all due respect to my good friend carl holtz, who i ink is a terrific reporter, ad that decision has not been me as chris van holland made it very clear. in fact, betsy m ssy marquis wh one of tho mentioned in carl s article, are absolutely top priorities for me and for our party. betty markey is tied in e polls. frank granville is slightly ahead. so these candites are in very good shape and they re going to win. thank you so much. democrat leader steny hoyer, we appreciate your time. appreciate it. next, can the tea party and republicans make for a winning team this november? ring ring. progresso.
things about congress as we know it today is it s wholly undisciplined in its own processes by which you could makeood legislation. let me i want to move you on to just another subject, because before you all count your cckens before they re hatched, i want to take a look at a couple of races and ask you the overall question, has the tea party activism helped hurt the gop? up s leme just show you a quick where the tea party candidate overtook the establishment candidate to win the primary. the polls now show ling that hay reid, who once looked very vulnerable, is now in a dead heat with sharron angle, theea party candidate. look at colorado, where we see michael bennet who looked quite vulnerable, democrat. he s now leading ken buck, a to party candidate who threw out an established republican by three points, the democrat is up. and in kentucky, very republican land, as both of you know, rand paul, a tea party blessed candidate, is now in a dead heat with jack conway.
credit for a lot of it, but during that time we cut spending. we controlled spending and then we cut it. we cut taxes, we had balanced budgets, we had welfare reform. we passed things like safe drinking water and portability of insurance. we got a lot of things done. we didn t always do it by doing it the way it was always done. broke the mold in several ways. they led the way in the house, quite frankly. but you know ouhow the senat works and you know how the house works. and in the end, do you think it s possible, i was trying to game out the possibilities here. do you think it s possible that tea party candidates or a party blessed candidates who come into the republican caucus can move the caucus more toward the middle, because they re going to have to reach out to democrats to get something done? so in other words you ve got the more conservative tea party candidatesthe more liberal democratic candidates. isn t this possibly going to build up the mdle? well, in fact, these can