WASHINGTON (AP) – New Republican senators who sometimes breathed tea-party fire as candidates are adopting a more moderate tone as they enter Congress.
A few of the 11 incoming GOP senators – the number could reach 12 – may still opt to battle party leaders, as some tea party-backed House Republicans have done. Thus far, however, they seem willing to cool their earlier rhetoric and work with senior colleagues to push a conservative mainstream agenda while confronting President Barack Obama.
Some who took hard-right positions on reproductive rights, for instance, have de-emphasized or abandoned those stands. Some who picked early fights with party leaders have made peace as the GOP prepares to take control of the Senate in January.
They are “a great new bunch” who will help “make the place function again,” a beaming Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday as he welcomed the senators-elect to his Capitol office.
Few of the newcomers are drawing more attention than Joni Ernst, who won an open Iowa seat long held by Democrat Tom Harkin. Democrats say Ernst’s highly publicized TV ad, about castrating hogs, distracted voters from more troubling comments she made about guns, the United Nations and other topics. During the campaign, Ernst: