They’re Both Right!
No need to be fighting like this:
With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states.
Movement conservatives pointed the finger right back at the establishment, accusing the National Republican Senatorial Committee of squandering millions on a California race that wasn’t close at the expense of offering additional aid in places like Colorado, Nevada and Washington state, where Democratic Sen. Patty Murray holds a narrow lead as the votes continue to be counted.
But the teabaggers really did cost the GOP control of the Senate, and the establishment’s bizarre fantasies of California triumph do indeed remain bizarre. If Florida had an electoral system that met minimally acceptable democratic standards, Karl Rove’s obsession with California would have cost Bush the 2000 election — but they’re still dreamin’.
Since some commenters who know better seem to buy this tea party excuse, I suppose I should address the argument that O’Donnell’s defeat was really a win because her primary win will keep other Republicans in line. The obvious problem with this argument is that it’s already been accomplished. I hate to break this to you, but Mike Castle was going to vote a straight tea party line on any vote that was consequential to the party leadership. And these Potemkin moderates are a real political asset to the GOP — the media just loves the senators who talk a good moderate game and then vote like Tom Coburn on any issue that actually matters, up to and including an essentially Rockefeller Republican health care plan. Sacrificing several Senate seats to accomplish something that’s already been accomplished while denying some extra political cover was unambiguously stupid.
The Republicans and the Tea Party get a lot of money from Californians. (I read somewhere that California Tea Party money was about all the Miller and O’Donnell had.)
I suspect the price of that money is that some effort must be made in California.
But Reagan was from California! Republicans must liberate the Holy Land!
I don’t think this is quite right. Delaware went Democratic 62/37 in 2008, compared to 58/40 in Maine, 55/44 in Pennsylvania, and 62/36 in Massachusetts. Republican senators from those states broke with the Tea Party line on the stimulus and the financial regulation package. I think it’s likely that Castle would have been a possible vote for education reform or tax code reform in the new senate.
I think your point is right elsewhere. Gail Norton in Colorado and Sue Lowden in Nevada would have been down-the-line Tea Party votes and would have won their respective elections. There’s a chance Lisa Murkowski will be as petty as Lieberman – or really, 1/10 as petty would do – and change her ideological profile out of personal spite after the primary embarrassment.
So, basically, I agree. I think, though, that we have evidence that Republican senators from quite blue states have been able to / been allowed to buck the party line on some key votes, as the stimulus and finreg votes show. Castle seems reasonably likely to have been another GOP Senator who wouldn’t vote quite perfectly party line on big issues.
Murkowski will go right back to being exactly who she was before all this nonsense. What we saw was not a tea party vs. establishment fight. It was a personal vendetta between Murkowski and Palin. It’s over. Palin lost. To the extent that it is necessary or useful, Murkowski will take revenge.
Just consider that with one Republican being batshit crazy and corrupt and the other being a write-in candidate, the two Republicans garnered 75% of the vote against a person who appeared to be decent and reasonable. It’s Alabama on ice.
Right, but I don’t believe Joe Lieberman saw his own battle as anything a righteous battle against the personal slights leveled against Joe Lierberman, the last moral man. Lieberman, though, is such a venal, petty human that he made significant changes in his ideology based on that perception of slights on his honor. (See John McCain v. 2001 for an analogous case.)
What I’m saying is that I can hope that Murkowski is equally, or even one-tenth as petty.
I mean, it’s not like Lieberman’s journey to the right has been a good thing for his political career. A purely career-focused Lieberman would have made amends with the party base and been assured of many more terms as a blue state Senator. Can’t we have a little hope Murkowski might do the same?
Republican senators from those states broke with the Tea Party line on the stimulus and the financial regulation package.
Right, but the key variable here is “if the leadership wanted them to.” I don’t think the GOP leadership and their business backers wanted TARP to fail. They wanted the bill to pass with a lot of GOP opposition.
TARP, sure.
The stimulus and financial regulation? Those I’m pretty sure the GOP leadership is actively and consistently opposed to. I think we err when we assume that American rightist elites are anything less than Randian bonkers on economic issues. Well, two parts Randian bonkers, three parts corrupt and self-seeking. In either case, I really don’t see the evidence that the party leadership or backing wanted the stimulus and fin-reg to pass.
Snowe, Collins, and Specter voted for the stimulus.
Snowe, Collins, and Brown voted for financial regulation.
All’s I’m saying is that Mike Castle looks a lot more like Snowe/Collins/Brown than he does like any other GOP Senator. I think Castle would have been only as much of a party-line vote as Snowe, Collins, and Brown have been.
And that’s where you’re wrong.
Those of us who have studied Castle’s actual record as a representative in the House know that he was already a straight line conservative vote, his fraudulent “moderate” P.R. notwithstanding.
Financial regulation, I’ll give you. Stimulus, I don’t think so.
Castle did support Cap and Trade and O’Donnell hammered him on it. And Castle was only planning on serving one term so it’s possible he wouldn’t have given a shit about the GOP establishment. But there is little in his record to support his moderate reputation. It is most likely he would have been like Snowe/Collins in allowing Democrats to court him by modifying bills just for him, then voting against them anyway.
I assume a lot of centrist and left-leaning Alaska voters decided, reasonably, that they’d rather hold their noses and vote for Murkowski than let a visibly deranged fascist become a United States Senator. I know I might have pulled that lever, if it came down to it.
That’s indeed what happened. There was about a 14-15 percent dropoff for McAdams compared with other Democratic candidates in other state races with no freakishly wingnut alternative to scare them. I’d imagine a few of those percentage points would have gone Murkowski’s way for the same reason (i.e., seniority) that Ted Stevens used to clear 90 percent of the vote. But still, Alaska democrats kind of shit the bed on this one.
I believe the error in judgement goes like this:
“
WeAmericans hate Barbara Boxer!”I think it’s a lot like attributing a movie’s disappointing box office receipts to the political views of Sean Penn: they’re the only ones obsessed with that shit but they project it onto the public writ large.
To be fair, I don’t think Boxer would fare well in a national election. Where the Republicans go wrong is in projecting their hatred onto Boxer’s constituents, rather than all Americans. They do the same thing with Pelosi. “Defeat Pelosi!” they cry. But she remains incredibly popular in her district, getting over 70% of the vote.
At least “Defeat Pelosi!” means something in districts outside of her own, considering her position in the caucus. I don’t think any but the most delusional wingnuts ever thought they’d actually knock her out of Congress outright.
Wingnuts who think Joe Swingvoter, whether in Peoria or Fresno, is going to cast his vote one way or the other because Barbara Boxer asked some soldier to call her “Senator” instead of “m’am” is making the same mistake — they just don’t realize it.
Here in Massachusetts you can see the same sort of reaction among people who just can’t believe that Deval Patrick could be re-elected when Drapes! Cadillac! He sounds like a nerd! etc.
She’d get more if she’d vote more progressively.
WeAmericans all think so.
Boxer is not in fact wildly popular even with some of her supporters. Tom Campbell might have had a better, if outside, chance against her than Carly “I’m an expert on outsourcing because I’ve done so much of it” Fiorina.
“Defeat Pelosi!” they cry. But she remains incredibly popular in her district, getting over 70% of the vote.
I don’t think the GOP had any illusions about defeating Pelosi in her district. However, they have just defeated her conclusively in the way they did intend.
I’m not saying Boxer’s especially popular. I’m saying she’s not as viscerally unpopular with the general electorate as she is with wingnuts, but wingnuts make the mistake of believing she is.
They thought they would take down Barney Frank, at least they convinced a bunch of news people they thought they could.
lefties made the same mistake WRT a certain vile Senator named Helms…
wingnuts wrt Clinton (both of them)
They also make the mistake of thinking someone is beloved/well respected because THEY love/respect that pol. I met some Bachmann fans this past weekend- BION- they have NO idea how she is seen by the non-wingnuts who are aware of her existence- kind of like those wingnuts who had no idea how universally Santorum was loathed- until he lost re-election and his name was coined into a word…
What sucks is that we now have Toomey, aka Santorum with better manners.
I used to live in Erie County and Binghamton- Republican leaning areas of NY- do you know what many there referred to non-Philly/Pitt regions of PA as? Alabama.
I usually heard “Pennsyltucky,” but the point stands. Still, if I were the sort to count electoral votes, I’d be sweating a bit over what a nightmarish bloodbath Pennsylvania and Ohio were. Then again, there might actually be some buyers’ remorse creeping in over the next couple of years, especially after a GOP House, e.g., blocks unemployment insurance extensions.
well they certainly had some remorse over Santorum didn’t they?
Look a good chunk of the electorate has buyer’s remorse after every election-
it’s quite likely the repubs lose ground in 2012 now anyway.
There is no sign that the Repubs have any significant appeal whatsoever among non-hispanic whites (except Cuban Floridians) the demographics keep shifting on them- the % of the vote they get from everyone save non-hispanic whites does not vary
to win (and how they won 2010)
1: They need a greater % of the non-hispanic white vote
2: They need a greater % of non-hispanic whites to vote than anyone else
They got #1 & #2 in 2000 & 2004
They didn’t get #2 in 2006 or 2010.
I don’t think they get #2 in 2012 when Obama runs for re-election- furthermore in some states like NEVADA where they ran a particularly odious anti-immigrant teaper they didn’t get #2 this year either because Hispanics were motivated to get and vote against that teaper.
Point #1 seems to keep increasing- but I think we’ve [finally] seen the ceiling. Unless the Republican party radically shifts on some social issues- the demographics are absolutely going to slaughter them one of these election cycles – high turnout among “minorities” coupled with an ebbing of support among whites- it WILL happen sooner or later.
Of course, in PA, the GOP now controls the legislature and the governor’s mansion, so they’ll do everything they can next year to destroy more Dem-leaning congressional districts. Seriously, Pennsylvanians, you voted out Democratic state legislators because of Nancy Pelosi?
Hmm…so it’s bad that the Republicans won the state legislature election in Pennsylvania, because that means the Republicans get to redistrict the state to make more Republican congressmen, right? I completely agree with that.
But then, starting from that premise, you can’t go on to say it’s crazy that Pennsylvanians voted out their Democratic state representatives to punish Nancy Pelosi. Because, um, voting out Democratic state legislators does help the Republicans in Congress. People may not be thinking that way consciously, but given that one reason I will always vote for Democratic state legislators is because of stuff like that, I don’t see how we can blame people we disagree with for voting the same way.
At any rate, the congressional districts in Pennsylvania are already gerrymandered for Republicans. I’m not sure there’s much more they can do in that respect. Obviously, PA is likely to lose a congressman (I think only one), so they’ll get to gerrymander out a Democrat if they can figure out how.
But the Democrats have already lost virtually all the non-safe house seats in the state – Jason Altmire and Mark Criz, Murtha’s successor, barely held on, and Holden won comfortably, but Carney, Kanjorski, Dahlkemper, and Murphy are all gone, and they lost Sestak’s seat as well. I imagine they’re going to take out Critz in the redistricting, given how crazily gerrymandered his district is, but that might create problems in future, more Democratic years, since they’d be splitting more Democratic voters back to a bunch of Republican districts.
And the Philly suburbs are, regardless of today’s results, increasingly Democratic. The Republicans are already pretty much at max strength there – Allyson Schwartz is the only Democrat representing Philly suburbs, and her district is already half in Philly, anyway. Given the demographics, it’s hard to see how the Republicans can do much in the Philly area to increase their seats. The Democrats in Philly itself are already incredibly concentrated in Brady and Fattah’s districts, and given that the suburbs are, as a whole, majority Democratic, it’s hard to see how they could gerrymander it to screw over Schwartz, who’d be the only vaguely vulnerable Democrat in the area. That leaves it hard to see how the GOP could do much more damage here.
The energy and passion that brought these excesses also helped them to win big in other places. Some of the “nuts” (“my security pass is higher than the President”) actually won.
Who’s the say in a different universe that Sestak would win narrowly instead of losing narrowly in PA? A more different person might have not beat Feingold — took a certain level of tool to run such a campaign. Many Tea Party sorts won; the fact some lost makes things look better. After all, the “true nuts” didn’t win. Not quite.
“Playing it safe” had its risks too.
–the establishment’s bizarre fantasies of California triumph do indeed remain bizarre
Wasn’t the media on board with this? Like Shrub’s “confidence con” in 2000, it appears that no right-winger ever lost face (or a job) in the media for over-estimating the electoral chances of any Republican.
(I, too, am waiting for Nate Silver to obsolete all that crap.)
Wasn’t Bush’s stupid jaunt supposedly about trying to win the popular vote? It’s less silly from the that perspective.
The jaunts to New Jersey and California were made to sucker the press into thinking that since Karl Suuuuper Geeeenius Rove thought those EVs were up for grabs that there was an “eventuality” factor.
Of course, this was to a press which was saying “Give it Up, Al” since about Labor Day, so the question becomes: Does the GOP think they were seducing the press corpse when said corpse were already throwing themselves at the GOP?
RE: Pennsylvania, had Sestak gotten half the financial support NYers poured into Pennsylvania in 2008 he would have won. He was heavily outspent and still almost pulled it off.
Welcome to the post-Citizens United era. From here on out, expect to be buried by unlimited spending.
The spending would have been significantly less if the corporations had to use separate PACs?
I think the problem here is to think that the tea party gives a damn whether McConnell gets a nice office in January 2011. I’m sure that McConnell would have liked to have that office and would have worked in the ways that Scott indicated to ensure that he occupied that office for as long as possible. But he’s not calling the shots. Thanks to Citizens United, the money isn’t coming from him, it’s coming from the Chamber and the Kochs, and they don’t have quite the same priorities as Mitch does.
The folks who funded the attacks on Mike Castle think that the momentum is on their side (as it is for now). As long as Obama has the veto pen, all the Republicans in the Senate can do is obstruct things, and they can do that perfectly well with McConnell as minority leader. For these guys, the mission for now is to drive the debate as far to the right as possible. When Obama is driven from office, the Republican majority will be there, or at least so they figure.
It actually gives me some confidence that the current Republican wave will be relatively short lived, but that seems to be the deal, and apart from Mitch, it doesn’t seem to be working too badly for them so far.
I hasten to add that, even if you disallow the possibility that certain northeastern senators might actually vote against the Republican position on an important issue, there is the matter that, when aforementioned northeastern senators appear on the talk shows and agonize about whether they are to vote for a Democratic initiative, it tends to support the notion that the Democrats might be bringing up a valid concern that deserves some sort of action. And you can’t have that.
I also hasten to add that many Republicans endorse stupid, petty, right-wing candidates who have no chance of winning because the aforementioned Republicans are stupid, petty, and right-wing. Sometimes the obvious reason is correct.
Conservatives are playing the long game on this one. If you want politicians to fear you, make them lose.
The difference between the GOP and the Dems is that the GOP would rather change their policies to suit their base than lose elections, while the Dems hate their base too much and would rather lose.
It is, of course, possible to take it much too far. But if you think things are going your way anyway, and you think that the Republican leadership might sell you down the river in the end, it doesn’t hurt you too much to send them a reminder.