Castle’s Failure
We’ve talked quite a bit on Castle’s failure to recognize the threat of the Tea Party and Christine O’Donnell. Castle’s failure is a lot more than just campaign rust. Castle did nothing while the Republican party became more and more extreme. Here’s a case in point:
Cap-and-trade is an environmental program intended to reduce greenhouse gases by allowing polluters to trade permits for emissions in ways that benefit cleaner industries and help those businesses needing more time. But cap-and-trade became an unlikely rallying cry for O’Donnell supporters during her campaign.
Joseph Cooper, a Johns Hopkins University professor and a member of the Annenberg Foundation’s Institutions of Democracy Project, that cap-and-trade legislation became a symbol and rallying issue for groups unhappy over the economy and government mandates.
Conservative talk-show hosts and conservative publications hammered at the issue in recent weeks, making points that resonated with conservative voters. They identified Castle as the poster child for cap-and-trade.
“You have an economy that’s in serious trouble and they’re talking about taxing utilities and raising costs for benefits that are disputable,” Cooper said. “If the country were in good shape, maybe there would be a more balanced discussion. The problem is people are suffering out there, and the realities of what people confront in their daily lives overcome media debates.”
That idea took root in Delaware and was frequently mentioned as a top issue by O’Donnell supporters questioned about their votes Tuesday.
Yes, Castle was defeated by cap and trade. Republican voters cited it as their top concern. The cap & trade program was a fairly small-scale program to reduce emissions by allowing corporations to buy permits to release pollutants, and those permits would decrease the total amount allowed to be emitted slowly year by year.
Less than a year ago, cap and trade was the policy of choice for tackling climate change.
Environmental groups and their foes in industry joined hands to embrace the approach, a market-driven system that sets a ceiling on global warming pollution while allowing companies to trade permits to meet it. President Obama praised it by name in his first budget, and the authors of the House climate and energy bill passed last June largely built their measure around it.
That sounds like something Republicans should support! Don’t they supposedly love the “free market?” It was a Republican idea!
The idea began as a middle-of-the-road Republican plan to unleash the market to reduce power plant pollution and spur innovation. But when lawmakers tried to apply the concept to the far more pervasive problem of carbon dioxide emissions, it ran into gale-force opposition from the oil industry, conservative groups that portrayed it as an economy-killing tax and lawmakers terrified that it would become a bonanza for Wall Street traders and Enron-style manipulators.
Mike Castle sat back and did nothing while his own party demonized the idea of cap & trade. They turned it into “cap & tax.” In fact, Republicans are now completely opposed to doing anything about the environment and all GOP candidates this cycle are global warming deniers.
What did Mike Castle do to stop this? Did he ever stand up and give a speech about how important this is? Or did he do his usual “they have a point” go-along-to-get-along shtick? Mike Castle thought the legislation was important enough to break with his party but not enough to stand up to them. Unfortunately we all lose when extremists run the show.
Tags: DE-Sen, Mike Castle, Republicans
If Castle was smart, he’d would have left the GOP years ago.
Castle had 3 choices, really:
1) leave the party
2) stand up to the party
3) move right with the party
He tried to do a combination of 2&3 without trying to piss off anyone on either side. McCain did #3 BTW, and he won his primary. Specter tried #1 and that didn’t work either. I think we all know no one really did #2.
I think the 2012 victims are going to be Olympia Snowe (it’s too late for #2 or #3) and Lindsey Graham.
4) Retire.
Democrats could have taken Castle out any time they chose with a young and energetic challenger with party support.
Democrat refusal to challenge Castle left him weaker and weaker over the years, until the vacuum was filled by teabaggers.
Castle was like an arthritic old bull elk that the wolves had agreed to leave alone. Finally the elks themselves did him in.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Castle lost because after so many years of his independent voice we had enough. 2010 happened to be the point of no return. He should have stuck to a general theme of “Delivering for Delaware” and not gotten so damn negative.
The bitch of it all is the Tea party movement was given roots by Copeland and Protack who both supported Castle yet their minions dumped their guy.
Cap and trade has no merit as a plan, paying to pollute is a farce and was a very small part of the reason Caste lost.
Well, to support cap and trade, you have to believe that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant.
Sure, he voted for cap and trade, but when is cap and trade going to be implemented? Exactly.
Castle made an art of casting votes with the Democrats that had no effect. This lowered his conservative ranking and allowing him to claim “independence,” while doing no actual damage whatsoever to the conservative agenda. Teabaggers are about to learn what happens in Delaware when you give up this strategy. (“I don’t care. I want the true conservative. Who is the true conservative?”)
“Well, to support cap and trade, you have to believe that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant.”
No, you simply have to believe that it’s causing climate change and that taxing it will incentivize greater energy efficiency. It’s easier for liberals to do this because we are not enslaved to a set of inflexible “principles” that amount to a philosophy of “selfishness is next to Godliness.”
“Well, to support cap and trade, you have to believe that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant.”
Or you have to understand that dependence on oil is a threat to national security.
Burning more coal is bad news for many more reasons than CO2.
Or you simply have to believe that if China is doing it, maybe it’s a good idea.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
By all means, ignore global warming.
http://www.care2.com/causes/global-warming/blog/10-000-walruses-forced-ashore-in-alaska/
40 million pounds of marine mammal… coming to a beach near you.
This DKos post has the goods on Koch Bros and their war against climate change legislation and its supporters….the one good reason for them to attack Castle via their massive tea party apparatus.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/18/184329/485.
After reading the WNJ today on teh God vote, no wonder that Beck and the Koch alliance bussed so many to the DC Mall in what was touted as a non-political, god-driven event a few weeks before the primary. Way to GOTV.
This should make the DEM’s Mall rally parallel the success just days before the general.
Every boot on the Mall ostensibly becomes boots for GOTV in spades.
Guess what Anon,
“Or you have to understand that dependence on oil is a threat to national security”
We get oil from one source in the Middle East,our ally Saudi Arabia.
How is oil a security threat? Well????
Lay out your argument in between kissing the asses of the GOP.
Perhaps you will utter that stupid argument about energy independence which will never ever happen.
Castle may have been attracted to the green jobs aspects of the original cap and trade bill. After all, this bill was being discussed at the same time GM was being taken over and the last vestiges of American automotive manufacturing in the northeast was being dismantled right here in Delaware.
I’m not sure what level of involvment Castle had with the Fisker Automotive deal, but it would not be too much of a stretch to consider that his yea vote on cap and trade was part of a quid pro quo to get good paying green manufacturing jobs for his constituents.
“We get oil from one source in the Middle East,our ally Saudi Arabia.”
– an ill-informed hate voter
Excellent post. Why these concepts these votes are not explained over and over and defended I don’t understand. Do the politicians think it’s too complex for us. Castle should have stood up led explained been forceful defending his votes educated us.
I was thinking of writing a post on this, but will just link to this must-read article here: The Stink of Desperation: Why Republicans Lie
If you think back to Bob Inglis’ recent critique of his party, this is it in a nutshell —
I’m a fan of Theory 2 and have made that case multiple times here. They can’t win on honest arguments (witness the mass running away from Ryan’s budget) so they make up tons of BS that help to buttress their POV, their resentments, their fears, their bigotries and all of those things that they’ve trained their constituents to think are important. They can’t face the fact that the financial crisis that we are in is the logical consequence of financial policies that supported the destabilization of the middle class and sent lots of our tax dollars to businesses that never needed the money.
There’s lots more where that comes from, of course, but the thing is that if the only way you can make sense of the world is to blame the financial crash on poor people buying houses via the CRA — in spite of tons of data and evidence and every single Fed Governor trying to correct the record — you’ve bought The Big Lie. And you deserve everything that you get. If you are tolerant of every damn lie that is pushed by your party, by your news media (Fox), by your entire entertainment complex (Limbaugh et al), then you are part of the problem. Because none of these outlets are in the business of even trying to make sense of either government or your neighbors.
So not educating voters (except on the fearmongering stuff meant to keep everyone in line) is a feature, not a bug of your modern GOP. So while they keep their voters busy playing with purity tests, the GOP elites are busy stealing everything in sight for themselves and their business. And as long as the GOP “moderates” are toeing the line of this BS, they are just as complicit and really not especially moderate at all.
There is no such things as Green jobs, they exist as expensive subsidies and provide jobs to workers who might have been doing previous manufacturing but it does nothing for job growth.
Castle’s best lit piece was about ‘delivering for Delaware’, I liked it a lot and was hoping for more like it.
The Castle defeat only hastened the eventual downfall of the GOP. It will start the revival if it can win the NCC County President spot in a special election.
Mike Castle, Arlen Specter, and Lincoln Chaffee walked into a bar in the middle of a rainy afternoon…..
… because they are unemployed losers who allowed their political party to get taken over by morons.
Cassandra, I agree with you on theory 2. The GOP has given up on trying to make honest arguments. Part of the background on that is that they don’t care about governing. The leadership is now a cadre of entertainers who are more concerned with TV ratings and making money than they are interested in policy.
The Republican Main Street Partnership:
LOL. Didn’t these guys used to be somebody?
It is ironic to say, but they are “moderate” in name only. Moderation is of no use when your main concern is keeping your moderate power dry.
“because they are unemployed losers who allowed their political party to get taken over by morons”
Come on Jason, Castle will have income from his politcal pension. His ego is unemployed not his wallet. Throw the rose on his political coffin and keep moving.
You’re right anon, about the Dems being able to take out Mikey years ago. They never ran anybody against him because they were better off leaving him in there. He was left leaning in his votes much of the time and he was a good bargaining chip for backroom concessions from the state GOP. Mike Castle was a Nixon-era Republican that never changed with the Reagan Revolution, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. But looking back on it, he was ripe for a striping in a GOP Primary for a good 10 years.
See what I mean? Delbert’s post here is a fantastic example of how bred in the bone the need to lie is in the GOP.
I disagree, Cass. He’s wrong in his analysis of where Castle stood on the political spectrum, but the rest of it is true once you adjust for parallax angle from the far right. The reason no Democrat ran against him was that nobody with anything to lose wanted to risk the loss. If the presumed federal job for Chris Coons is true, neither Coons nor O’Donnell had anything to lose.
Let’s not ignore one VERY significant reason for Castle’s defeat–the defection of a large number of moderate Republicans to the Democratic Party in 2008, to help Jack Markell win the primary. They didn’t return, which left the DE GOP more to the right than they have likely ever been. And Castle (and his campaign) failed to recognize this and make adjustments (get a party registration effort, as Jack did and Obama did in 2008). The departure of the moderates from the DE GOP left the right-wingnuts as a larger force proportionately (and Castle no longer safe), not in the state, but in the DE GOP, those voters permitted to vote for Castle/O’Donnell on the 14th.
Jason I think you are being unfair to Lincoln Chaffee. Remember he publicly announced he was not supporting W for President, and wrote W’s dad’s name in. Also Chaffee won his GOP primary, but lost in the general, so technically the GOP did not force him out. Also Castle isn’t a true moderate like Specter and (both) Chaffee’s. Specter while still a GOP voted for the Lily Ledbetter act, Castle didn’t. Anyone who voted against that bill is not a moderate. The GOP has swung so far right that Castle was considered a moderate, but his voting record doesn’t support the label! However the part about the GOP being taken over by morons is true.
I agree with Iowa Dem about Chafee, whom I’m supporting for Governor of Rhode Island this year. He voted fairly progressively, often more so than many of the conservadems, he was pretty outspoken about what was happening in his party (and privately considered challenging Bush in 2004 for the nomination to make a point), and when he lost he publicly stated that it was the best outcome for the country so that the Democrats would re-take the Senate. He’s running Indy for governor currently, to the left of the “Democrat” in the race.
Cass, THIS “A feature, not a bug”
and THIS “complicit”.
That’s the sad story, in a NUTshell.
eta… and, happy as it was for Governor Markell to get moderate Republicans reregistered as D’s, we should not forget it moved the DEMOCRATIC party to the right, as well.