A primary election is still an election. The tea party movement is growing, not shrinking, and those on either side are worried, quite frankly. Otherwise they would just ignore them. It’s like that old Gandhi saying.
What’s so radical about wanting to curb government spending, lower taxes, or have a balanced budget? I know, I know, the “mainstream” Republicans and Democrats have been doing such a fine job of running our country into the ground. We wouldn’t want any of those kooky, “radical” outsiders to come in and fix things now would we?