Yesterday, John Cornyn declared that the Republican Party establishment is afraid of its base:
“We will not spend money in a contested primary,” Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told ABC News in a telephone interview today.
“There’s no incentive for us to weigh in,” said Cornyn, R-Texas. “We have to look at our resources…. We’re not going to throw money into a [primary] race leading up to the election.”
But just a year-and-a-half ago, the grownups declared that they were going to take charge. Smarting after special election losses in deep red districts which featured a shabby parade of Republican nominees – Jim Oberweis (IL-14), Woody Jenkins (LA-06), and Greg Davis (MS-01) – John Boehner ordered Tom Cole to jump into the muck:
The NRCC will now wade into competitive GOP primaries when appropriate. This is a significant shift, as Cole’s policy has been to stay out of such contests even when the party believes one candidate would clearly be the best general election bet. In Illinois and Louisiana in particular, Republicans suffered because they fielded a poor nominee. The race to replace retiring Rep. Vito Fossella (R) in New York, which could draw several GOP contenders, could be the first high-profile test of the new policy.
I have to laugh for a moment regarding the Fossella succession – that was a shitshow for the ages. But in general, this move actually made some sense. After all, did the Republicans really want to drown their chances with more Randy Grafs?
It turns out the answer now is yes. Sure, Cornyn runs the NRSC, and here we’re talking about the NRCC. But no doubt Pete Sessions is running scared, too – after all, it was his NRCC that took serious heat from the teabaggers for backing Scozzafava in NY-23, and obviously that race is what inspired Cornyn’s newfound wimpiness. So I’m sure we’ll see a reluctance on the part of both campaign committees to meddle in primaries. The Republicans are terrified of their base – and they should be.
Side with incumbents, should primaries occur, stay neutral in open seat contests. All 8 Committees (Governor, House, Senate, National Committees) should be protecting their current members, as any club should unless they have reason not to (William Jefferson!) but stay out of the voter selection of n00bs.
This does however make KY-Sen, NH-Sen, and FL-Sen much more interesting, though. 🙂
Progressive Punch has John Cornyn ranked 96/100, and Pete Sessions ranked 427/433. But because both of them recognize that not every district can elect a teabagging birther or some such lunatic, the base is calling for their heads. Literally. An emboldened Redstate is “demanding” that Sessions be removed from his position.
This would be the same as if our side was taking marching orders from Code Pink. What the right wingers don’t realize is that their candidates in New Jersey and Virginia won in part because they postured themselves away from the lunatic fringe, and Hoffman lost because he was part of it.
But, keep the faith my right wing brothers and sisters!! Don’t stop at Dede!! You’ve got to finish the job! Time to “Melt the Snowe” in Maine (and push her into our caucus!). Get rid of Collins, too! And squishy moderate RINO’s like Senator Bennett in Utah. He needs to be purged. All you need is people like Michelle Bachmann be the face of the GOP, and Americans will flock to conservatism.
Can Kos endorse selected candidates in R primaries? Would it be worth the trouble, say in FL-Sen?
(e.g. if Kos were to endorse Crist, could Meek beat Rubio, or would we just end up facing an attractive wingnut who could appeal to Hispanics?)
If Tom Campbell shows traction in CA-Gov, could Kos endorse him, say in the name of a “reasonable opposition party”?
After create the problem, they are affraid? Is their problem…
since the end of the 2008 election. This huge rift in the GOP to me was clearly going to happen.
First, you have a party that has created its base as the segment of America with the lowest amounts of education and as a double edged sword, are proud of their ignorance! Relying on the anti-intellectualists of the country was mistake number one as they won’t listen to reason, they won’t look at the poll numbers, they instead follow their own dogma blindly and at the cost of their own benefit.
Mistake two was never being able to give them what they want. The GOP has been unable to make abortion illegal, creating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was never and will never be possible in the 21st century, kicking out 12 million illegal immigrants is completely irrational and impossible, and most importantly, government spending. I think the American electorate’s belief on tax and spending is a dichotomy, no one wants to pay taxes but everyone wants the government to pay for some social services. If you cut this item of spending, you’ll make this group happy but make another pissed. Cutting government spending down to what the tea baggers would want, in my opinion, is impossible as you’ll eventually have pissed so many people with the cuts that a 50%+1 majority will form against the cuts. Furthermore, cutting gov. spending during a troubled a economic time is completely contradictory to what should occur and even Bush knew this.
The GOP entered a deal with the devil in taking on the anti-intellectual segment of our population and now it is coming back to bite them in the ass. When we celebrate Sen. Meek, maybe they will have learned their lesson.
Limbaugh-Beck 2012!!!!! And Palin as SoS of course.
The C4G has the complete opposite policy, which means Rubio can close the financial gap with the help of C4DG. They’re already going at it.
H/t Scorecard:
…when the NRSC and NRCC asks candidates to risk their neck and running while promising NOT to support them if they run into any trouble.
Pete Sessions will finally have an opponent in the GOP primary. His name is David Smith, and he’s a writer for Dallas County Republican Examiner. (See http://www.examiner.com/x-1700… )
He’s written articles supportive of the tea party movement, and has also written articles critical of Sessions’ ethical lapses.
Should be an interesting primary season in TX-32, for once!
I vaguely remember Donald Trump endorsing Ed Koch in the democratic primary.
It might have been some other democratic primary endorsement (not necessarily by Trump).
But it was only in the primary and not in the main election.
It happened in the 1980s. Does anybody remember?