On How Pete Sessions Finds His Party’s Fatal Flaw
…or finds one of them, at least.
Last night, the state GOP had their annual pep rally, with keynote speaker Representative Pete Sessions from Texas. According the the NJ reports, there wasn’t much remarkable about the meeting, which included the usual calls for party unity, the usual fawning over Mike Castle (with nudge nudge wink wink hints at a run for the Senate by Castle) and the usual avoidance of what happened to their dreams of a permanent repub majority (they weren’t “fortunate” at the ballot box). But, according to this article, Sessions had this to say contrasting the differences between the two parties:
“We have community leaders, and they have community activists,” he said. “The Democratic Party is made up of people who are marching on City Hall.”
Read that again.
So the difference between the two parties is that Rs are mostly people who are looking for followers; while Ds are getting out in the trenches trying to make change. So which group do you want to be part of?
It seems odd to try to denigrate the business of getting your voters and allies out where government decisions can be influenced — whether you are knocking on doors talking to voters or organizing against some environmental atrocity or going to City Hall to remind them who they work for. Especially in the last election where the Rs spend much of their time buying clothes for Sarah Palin and her crew, working on their name calling skills (I guess thinking that they could get Obama to play the dozens with them), and working overtime to ramp up the fear factor among voters. Sessions doesn’t seem to get that if Rs had more folks in the street (and at the ballot box) for his guy then they wouldn’t have so many wounds to lick — which is really puzzling since boots on the ground is a key element of any election. Sessions wants you to know that Republicans really are pretty contemptuous of the basic obligations of citizenship, as he spends his time lamenting that his party doesn’t have enough followers.
Tags: Republicans
If by “community leaders” he means people like Mike Protack, Dave Burris and Rick Jensen I say – Hooray for Pete Sessions!
And other thing…I hope Republicans are enjoying this:
with nudge nudge wink wink hints at a run for the Senate by Castle…
Because unless Tom Carper has MUCH more juice than even I give him credit for, Mike Castle is NOT running for the Senate.
Stamp it.
Book it.
File it under “Nah Gah Happen.”
Gosh if Castle ran for Senate, what would Christine O’Donnell do?
Anyway, unless a Democrat who has the balls (females included) and a large enough back account decides to run, the seat is Beau’s and Beau’s alone.
Jason put down your crystal ball. Coryan just announced it on cspan this morning…and yes he said, “we have republican in the house who is going to run for the Senate, that is Mike Castle of Delaware”. Now you tell me where you get your stamp it, book it, file it?
Hmm, Pete Sessions is the guy who said that the Republican Party is the American Taliban.
Interesting that the Delaware Republican Party didn’t rescind his invitation.
Oh, liz, liz… the tinfoil must have slipped and covered up your ears…
From Politico:
“What I think is interesting is the opportunities President Obama and Vice President Biden have given us,” Cornyn said. “We’ve got Joe Biden’s seat in Delaware where a guy like Mike Castle, a very successful two-term GOP governor, a very popular individual, is considering the race.”
There is no way the Republicans are going to take on Beau, the Vice President’s son. Can you imagine how much money the Biden camp will be able to raise for this race?? They might run Christine or a Christine-clone but Castle will never take this on.
Jason’s got it right!
If Castle runs for Senate, Joe Jr runs for congress and waits for Mike’s retirement after one term. The pup can afford to be a little patient in waiting for his next present from daddy.
Pragmatist,
Conversely, can you imagine how much money the Republicans will be able to raise to fight the vice-president’s son? Every red-meat conservative in the country will be shelling out money for that one.
The spending in such a race, whoever the GOP candidate is, will dwarf all other campaigns in Delaware history.
How many Republicans are going to open their wallets for a 70+ year-old’s first Senate run? I doubt they will be able to afford it with all the open seats they are going to have to defend (like Florida). I just don’t see it. There will also be a top Democratic challenger in the race.
Look, the whole thing comes down to Beau. As Joe Biden’s son running for AG, he attracted some criticism. As the vice president’s son running for his dad’s old job, he’ll be the target of every Rush dittohead around the country. Taking out Beau would be a huge GOP victory. It may be Castle, it may be Copeland, it may be Tom Kovach. Who knows? But they’ll put up someone tough, with some serious bucks behind them.
it may be Copeland, it may be Tom Kovach.
Come again?
In other words: … it may be Mike Matthews, it may be Dave Burris, it may be Tyler Nixon, it may be Jason Scott.
Sorry about the confusion. My point was that it doesn’t matter who the candidate is, he or she is going to get a shitload of money from out-of-state donors eager to kick the White House in the nuts by proxy.
Ahh…now I get it. I was taking your comment literally to mean that Kovach could take out Biden.
No, but I do think he is being groomed.
Liz misquoted someone?
“How many Republicans opened their wallets for a 70+ year-old named McCain?
Politico is not C-span. Why would he SAY the name if he was “considering” it. Politicans don’t play that game. You state the name when its KNOWN in your circle what the deal is. He could have said, “there are several members of the house republicans who are CONSIDERING a run for Senate. Making the point of using Castles name is far beyond “consideration”.
The full story, from the Politico (link below)…
(And if you’ll recall, Alan Levin was CONSIDERING a run for the gubernatorial nomination… and then actually made up his mind. Considering is just… uh… considering.)
——-
Delaware’s Senate seat could be in play in 2010, at least if the Senate Republicans’ leading recruiter has his way.
In an interview for C-SPAN “Newsmakers,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn said he had been chatting with Delaware congressman Michael Castle, and that he is “considering” running for the Senate.
“What I think is interesting is the opportunities President Obama and Vice President Biden have given us,” Cornyn said. “We’ve got Joe Biden’s seat in Delaware where a guy like Mike Castle, a very successful two-term GOP governor, a very popular individual, is considering the race.”
Castle, a leading Republican moderate, has comfortably won re-election since first winning the House seat in 1992. He served as the state’s governor from 1984-1992.
Outside of Castle, Republicans don’t have much of a bench in the state.
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the son of the vice president, is expected to run for his dad’s old Senate seat, and is favored to win the nomination. A Castle-Biden matchup would pit two of the state’s biggest-name politicians against each other.
If Castle decided to run for the Senate, Democrats would be favored to pick up his at-large House seat. Former lieutenant governor John Carney has been mulling a run for that race, whether Castle runs or not.
Delaware has been a reliably Democratic state recently: It gave President Obama 62 percent of the vote in 2008.
The full interview with Cornyn is scheduled to air Sunday on C-SPAN. Cook Political Report editor Jennifer Duffy also participated in the questioning.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0209/King_of_the_Castle.html
Not so many, anon. They certainly opened their wallets for Palin, though.
When McCain’s bid was in the tank, over-spent coffer and over-budget campaign, he was also the only possible choice for the Bluebloods who run the DE GOP. No fundy Arkansan, no chilly morman would do.
McCain came to DE for checks and got them and was finally on the winning trajectory. If Mike Castle had a wiff of statesmanship in him, he’d try for the senate but he knows he is a lame fuck.
The Delaware way says Mike retires, Carney takes the House and Beau takes the Senate.
Castle will want to go out on top. So yeah, he retires.