Moderates Need Not Apply
The GOP purity purge is accelerating, despite their loss of NY-23. It’s no wonder the teabaggers feel empowered – they were being interviewed all over the media yesterday. They see the loss of NY-23 as a big win for their movement – the movement to make a smaller, purer GOP. The purgers scored another big victory – they’ve convinced the NRSC not to interfere in primaries. So watch out Charlie Crist:
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Tex.) says he won’t channel cash into any primary pitting Republican vs. Republican — including the heated Florida Senate primary between Marco Rubio and Gov. Charlie Crist.
“As far as what’s happening in specifically Florida — we made a decision to endorse Gov. Crist at his request. But we’e really not involved in the primary,” Cornyn told Manu. “That’s up to the voters in Florida.”
When he asked Cornyn, “But you are at least raising and spending money for Crist?” Cornyn shot back —
“No, we won’t be doing any of that until after the nomination. Our job is to elect Republicans so voters in Florida will have a chance to sort that out.”
This is big news. Crist was personally recruited by the NRSC to run for the Florida senate seat and was endorsed by the NRSC. Is he now un-endorsed? Can Crist survive a Republican primary against teabagger favorite Marco Rubio? You know who else fits the Crist/Rubio race profile – Castle/O’Donnell. Will teabaggers turn their sights to Delaware?
Here is the top target list, according to Jim DeMint who has a “Conservative Senate Fund” (he’s trying to position himself as a leader of the tea partiers):
Arkansas – no announced Republicans yet
California – Chuck DeVore over Carly Fiorina
Colorado – Jane Norton vs. Ken Buck (sounds like no decision yet on this race)
Florida – Marco Rubio (their darling) over Charlie Crist
Kentucky – probably Rand Paul (Ron Paul’s son) over Trey Grayson
Nevada – no announced Republicans yet
Pennsylvania – they love Toomey
Texas – no announced candidates yet
Former moderate Mark Kirk, who is running for Obama’s old senate seat in Illinois is obviously spooked. He’s been begging for Palin’s endorsement:
Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk penned a memo to Republican poobah Fred Malek hoping to secure an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his Senate candidacy, according to a copy of the memo obtained by the Fix.
After noting that Palin will be in Chicago later this month to appear on “Oprah”, Kirk writes that “the Chicago media will focus on one key issue: Does Gov[ernor] Palin oppose Congressman Mark Kirk’s bid to take the Obama Senate seat for the Republicans?”
Kirk goes on to write that he is hoping for something “quick and decisive” from Palin about the race, perhaps to the effect of: “Voters in Illinois have a key opportunity to take Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Congressman Kirk is the lead candidate to do that.”
edited at 8:30 am
Tags: Charlie Crist, John Cornyn, NRSC
The real story is Dem Governors and Dem Candidate for Governors need not re apply or apply. Corzine and Deeds RIP.
The 23rd will be recaptured in 2010, don’t worry. The insiders of the GOP made a huge mistake and they should be replaced along with their turncoat nominee.
Mike Protack
Rest in Peace, Mike? RIP? They lost an election. They are not dead, no matter how you wish it so.
Not to split hairs, but Republicans lost NY-23, but in Republican Land that doesn’t count.
It is funny, but in the two elections on Tuesday that actually had national implications with candidates running on Obama’s agenda, the Democrats won. And in the two state elections that had nothing to do with Obama’s agenda, the GOP won. Now, I don’t mind the GOP trying to make hay out of their wins in New Jersey and Virginia, because if I was in their shoes, I would do the same. Indeed, I was in their shoes, in 2001, when the Democrats won both states. We all thought it was a repudiation of Bush that would lead to the retaking of Congress in 2002. How did that turn out?
Exactly DD. I feel like I’m living in bizarro-land. When Democrats took back Congress and the Senate – I get Republicans on my TV. When Democrats win the presidency and increase their majority in the House and Senate – more Republicans on my TV. Now Republicans won 2 governor’s races and lost two House races (you did realize that the number of Democrats in the House went up by 2, right?) and I get even more Republicans on my TV.
I listened to Republican strategist Mike Murphy this morning on my drive in to work. The interviewer barely challenged him on his premise that Republicans learned how to win this time (Murphy didn’t even mention what happened in NY-23 instead talked about “moderate” Chris Christie and “pragmatic conservative” Bob McDonnell). He’s obviously a RINO who should be purged immediately. Of course, Murphy also just fed into the braindead media narrative that wins by Christie and McDonnell means people hate Obama, hate health care reform and Obama is so very divisive and partisan.
Yeah UI, everything you say is true.
But I’m still wrestling with the under-performance by D voters.
If tracking right is energizing the R’s to turn out, that might just be their only shot at a winning strategy. These are not supid people, they have demonstrated that they know how to win. One way or another. And winning is all they care about. They’ve been lying to the country about their real corporatist agenda for the past century and a half. It worked.
If we can’t get our voters to the polls we’re in for a tough year in 2010. We should win, but with 10 or 20% under performance we’re going to get our clock cleaned. This isn’t going to be a cakewalk.
The commenters who say the NJ/VA elections are an Obama repudiation are missing the point.
Obama’s legendary crowd turnouts during the 2008 campaign didn’t convince more people to vote for him, it just energized them to actually vote on Election Day. The people in those crowds were already natural Obama voters but they needed a push to get to the polls.
So Obama’s campaigning for Corzine or Deeds in the last few weeks was always going to be too little, too late. He needed to start sooner and lay out for the lazy Dem voters exactly what the stakes were, and he didn’t do that. Hey, that wasn’t really his job anyway, Obama has enough to do.
Obama can’t just hand over his voters to other candidates — those candidates have to understand what the Obama coalition looks like and work at reaching that coalition. Deeds was Exhibit A for not reaching out to any of Obama’s voters really and Corzine didn’t get Obama’s younger voters and independents, I think. Plus, the analysis from Kos you posted yesterday, Rebecca seems really on target — Dems haven’t given Dems much to be eager to go out to vote for in the first place.
Rebecca, I’ve been looking, but not finding, maybe you can help me. How did D turnout in Virginia compare with the last off year election? Or in NJ, but that’s a little different, IMO.
GOTV in the general came straight out of OfA…. which I considered embarrassing, but at least it was effective. I think the new OFA is good, too, but I worry that the party hasn’t integrated it very well yet. If we can’t get turnout from new voters without a draw top of ticket, we WILL have trouble.
I’ll have to find links (no time right now) but IIRC, the %African Americans who voted in VA dropped from 20% to 15% and the under-30s dropped from 15% to 10%. (Don’t quote me on these)
Brooke – I would Google on Exit Polls Virginia, you’ll probably find the data there.
Truthfully… If I lived in Virginia I’m not sure I could have pulled the lever for Deeds. His statement on not supporting HCR infuriated me, and I won’t vote for a Dem who runs on a Republican platform.
I’m only finding comparisons to 2008. I’m looking for that last, which was 2005, I think.
Brooke,
For raw numbers go to the Virginia Board of Elections website at:
http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Election_Information/Election_Results/Index.html
I’m guessing some wonky website is crunching the numbers now, or will be in the next week or so when the VBE has final counts. I’d be surprised if DailyKos doesn’t have a post on this soon.
Also keep checking FiveThirtyEight.com and Pollster.com. They live for this kind of wonky numbers analysis.
What U.I. said. FiveThirtyEight is a trove of wonkery.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
My late husband did these numbers, in Florida, pre-internet. When we see them we may have an idea of what we’re actually up against. Until then, we’re talking through our hats. Thanks for the links. 🙂
Ouch!
Me ouch? Did I ouch again? Oh dear. 🙁
“Not to split hairs, but Republicans lost NY-23, but in Republican Land that doesn’t count.”
Your stupidity is unreal. The “REPUBLICAN” dropped out of the race you dope!
So your premise is the Republican dropped out of the race and… won?
DC, you’re the idiot. The base of the Republican Party caused Dede to drop out because she was too moderate for their taste, so they voted for the Conservative candidate, who is a Republican. So, the Republican lost that race twice.