With Democrats defending almost twice as many Senate seats as Republicans in 2014, the GOP has a chance to make up for this year’s dismal performance and retake the Senate. But that also means reforming the National Republican Senatorial Committee to prevent future Todd Akin-esque candidates. Politico reports:
Now, top Republicans are considering splitting the difference between the heavy hand they wielded in 2010 that prompted sharp blowback from the right and their mostly hands-off approach of 2012. Both strategies produced a handful of unelectable candidates, so senators are gravitating toward a middle ground: engage in primaries so long as they can get some cover on the local level.
“We ought to make certain that if we get engaged in primaries that we’re doing it based on the desires, the electability and the input of people back in the states that we’re talking about,” Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, the incoming National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, told POLITICO. “And not from the perception of what political operatives from Washington, D.C., think about who ought to be the candidate in state X.”
The first-term Moran, who was elected to the spot last week by his Senate colleagues, tapped incoming Texas freshman Sen. Ted Cruz as a vice chairman for grass roots and outreach. The plan, according to party leaders, is to employ Cruz’s tea party star power to help win over activist groups that may be wary of the NRSC and help unify the GOP behind a single candidate in crucial Senate races.
Moran is an interesting choice to lead the middle-ground approach. He’s only been in the Senate for a year, and while he’s not exactly “establishment,” he also isn’t someone who thrills the grassroots. That could either help him work with both sides, or end up turning them both off. Deploying Cruz is also critical for the new NRSC strategy. Cruz replaces Orrin Hatch as vice chair, and could be instrumental in building relationships between the NRSC and local activists. He and Senator Rob Portman (who will serve as finance chair) will be important when it comes to fundraising, since Moran is expected to be weaker in that area.
Jim DeMint also tells Politico that political training — a more controversial proposal — will be necessary to prevent candidates from torpedoing their campaigns with a single stupid comment:
“We need to do a good job of recruiting; our candidates need more training, keep their foots out of their mouth,” DeMint told POLITICO. “There’s a reason why most politicians talk in sanitized sound bites: Once you get out of that, you’re opening yourself up to get attacked.”
In an interview, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the NRSC chairman in the past two cycles, said the party needs to ask itself whether the goal is to prop up the most conservative candidate or push through the most conservative candidate that can win a general election. He said the party is reevalating its approach.
It’s actually a good time for a compromise. Both sides of the establishment vs. grassroots divide seem tired of losing for the past two elections, and both share equal amounts of the blame for it. They may finally be ready for a middle-ground approach.
Several years ago I was very involved with a Republican senatorial candidate who wanted the support in a primary of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He was to challenge an authentic RINO who would, upon defeat by the Democrat in November, drop the Republican label for Independent and end upon speaking at the Democratic convention this past September. During the meeting in Washington with Senator Elizabeth Dole and some staff member whose name escapes, he was urged to drop out of the race. One of Dole's talking points to him: "we're all good Christians." The moral of this story? Don't trust anyone from the establishment Republicans in Washington to identify and support conservatives who can run winnable races. They are no more reliable than the Tea Party candidates.
you must be talking about crist in florida – he is the only one fitting your description.- an marco rubio. Well, that was a big doozie of the NRSC- abd this is why they kept hands off other races. the problem is that the new approach ahd its major flaws too (O'Donnell, Akin) and so, they are now trying to navigate a middle path. Primairly, the candidates have to be smart and not put their foot in their mouth.(Akin, O'Donnell suffered mainly from being shoewn not be seantorial material)
The GOP could copy the Dems and not permit primaries for the Senate. Worked ok for Elizabeth Warren. n nJust being cynical. Since 2002, New York Dems only allow a primary when they want the incumbent to retire. n nThe GOP needs more Bob Corkers, fewer Rick Santorums.
Rick Santorum won two Senate elections, just for the record and that included beating Harris Wofford, the darling of the liberal media who was talked up as a running mate for Bill Clinton in 1992 because his upset of establishment candidate Dick Thornburgh in a 1991 special election was the warning bell about H.W. Bush's vulnerability that the establishment GOP was too dense to realize.
I think Mitt Romney shows what happens when the base is told whom the candidate will be rather than involved in selecting the candidate. Had Mitt gotten the same number of white male votes that McCain did in '08, he would have won. That is a fact.
Talk about a flawed candidate, Pocahontas Warren was a fake Indian whose Great Grandfather actually *shot* an Indian, who neglected to pay her taxes until the Herald started inquiring into it, who represented an insurance company that successfully refused to pay damages to shipbuilders who died from asbestos exposure, who is paid an obscene amount of money for the one class that she teaches at the elite (and hated) Harvard University. n nCompare this to the blunders of the Republican Senatorial Candidates — She was far worse a candidate than Akin or O'Donnell and she *won*…. It is the machine behind the candidate and not the candidates themselves. The Democrats start building their bench with the college students, the Republicans do their best to destroy the lives of conservative college kids.
Why is political training controversial? How exactly are good people to learn this stuff — not everyone learns it in the purgatorial cesspools of places like UMass Amherst — there is a lot to be said for what I learned in grad seminars where professors would spend a couple hours doing nothing but attack me personally, or for speaking at a rally where the police detail behind you is sending in an "officer in trouble" call because things are going from nasty to dangerous, or saying something truly stupid on camera and cringing upon seeing it broadcast on the 6 & 11 PM news. n nAkin & O'Donnell weren't necessarily bad candidates — they were unprepared candidates who weren't well served by their campaign "experts." Take O'Donnell — what woman hasn't gone on at least one date that was a total disaster, what father (or mother) hasn't had some concerns about at least one of the young men dating "his little girl" whom he still remembers in diapers? She could have spun that "Politically Incorrect" clip into having been a victim of violence against women and everything else — she states that her date tricked her into practicing satanic stuff and that she didn't know what it was and got out when she found out. n nChristian theology is that Satan will attempt to corrupt good people, the left believes that men coerce women into stuff, and here is Bill Mayer threatening her with stuff from 22 other shows. And then there is what got Mayer's show cancelled — calling the US "Cowards" after 9-11 and that alone would have discredited the show. She also has the absolutism of Emmanuel Kant — she could have said something like "look, I *can't* lie — I told you about this — you can trust me as your Senator because I can't lie to you…" n nInstead some moron came up with the "I'm not a witch" advertisement. n nAkin was sabotaged — I have had the same question thrown at me and spun it right around back into the face of the questioner. It really is simple to do — first, you concede that it is a terrible violation of a woman's civil rights to force her to bear the child of her rapist, and you dodge the issue of likelyhood of her actually becoming pregnant by referencing what a hospital emergency room would do to ensure that she didn't — and anyone who knows what they would do has to concede that it would be nearly impossible for her to be pregnant afterwards. But then, you argue, this involves the balancing of the rights of the woman and the rights of her child – what about a situation where it is just her alone? What about involuntary psych commitment? n n"You're not just saying she has to have a child she doesn't want to give birth to — and do not forget that abortion is an invasive surgical procedure from which women can and do die, not to mention the increased risk of breast cancer, loosing future (wanted) children to RH-syndrome and the rest — with involuntary commitment you are locking her up in a cage." "Isn't that worse?" n nThis is where it helps to know your state's involuntary commitment laws (and if there are any grotesque examples, like the Massachusetts one of a woman "who survived the Holocaust only to die in the hands of the Lynn Police" (McCabe v. Lifeline Ambulance) and at this point you have completely changed the topic and are now discussing something that the leftist can not defend. n nProblem solved. But Akin was totally unprepared — and that does not mean that he was a bad candidate, only an unprepared one. n nThe problem that the GOP has is that only the RINOs are prepared. And when someone like Scott Brown wins an election, whom does he have for his staff — folks like me? No, RINOs. n nMitt Romney bought the best campaign staff that money could buy — far more expensive people than Obama had, and look who won. The untold scandal of Mitt's '08 run for the nomination is the extremely high dollar-per-delegate rate he had, no that he didn't get the nomination that time but how much he spent and how little he got for it. By contrast, look at whom the Dems got elected or re-elected. Tierney. Jo-Jo-Joe Kennedy. Etc. Think those folk could have done it on their own? n nMy point: The GOP has a lot of professional people who aren't all that good. Blaming this on the candidates is fighting the wrong battle, we need to clean out the party establishment.
It seems to me that the RSCC types like to look at polls early in the year to determine how the candidates would do in elections held in November. This certainly happened in 2010 in Florida when the RSCC discouraged Marco Rubio from running against one of the lowest forms of life ever to appear on the Florida and American political scene. Some blame the Tea Party wing of the Party for Todd Aiken but these people ignore the fact that the Tea Party wing was supporting another candidate in that primary–a woman as it happens. n nAs Bill Kristol put it, but Tea Party and Establishment types lost this year. Two probable winners (IN & MO) ruined thmeselves with stupid comments that made things worse. Another two (ND & MT) stood for nothing. All four were in states Romney won.
I wonder how much "Team Mitt" — not Romney himself but his campaign — "poisoned the well." n nWhat we saw during the primaries can only be described as "slash & burn." I can't say it happened, but I saw published reports that Karl Rove was joking about possibly murdering Akin, I doubt the party helped Akin all that much. On the Farm Team, Michelle Bachmann, Allen West — the party didn't help either much, and West got screwed by an incompetent and/or corrupt voter tally. n nI know Maine, and all I can say is that what I saw there this year disgusted me. I am not a Ron Paul fan, but what was done to him has driven his supporters right back to the Democrats for at least another generation. Maine was becoming Republican again, and I am just waiting for Paul LaPage to leave the party and to take both the Tea Party people *and* the Ron Paul people with him, like Longley did. n nSo I would caution one to be careful in looking at if Romney won a state or not, it might not be as clear an indicator as it once was.
1. I live in Allen West's district and appeared in a commerical for him. "The Party" did NOT screw him as Ed puts it and although the Election Supervisor in St. Lucie County is incompetent (a Democ-rat, of course) he was unfortunately defeated by more than the .5% that would trigger a recount. n n2. If the Ron Paul people think their objectives of smaller government would be better served by the Democ-rat Party, let them go there. To paraphrase Charles Lichtenstein, we'll just stand at the Augusta harbor and wave them a fond farewell.
As I understand it — and I am not from Florida — the Florida GOP Legislature redrew his district in a way that very much didn't help him. If I am wrong on this I will stand corrected but that is my understanding of what happened. n nAs to your second point, that is exactly why Romney lost. n nJust because people won't vote for a Democrat doesn't mean they will vote for a RINO — they just won't bother to vote at all. Had Romney gotten the same number of white male votes that McCain did, he would be President. I suggest that the more proper analogy would be the Ron Paul people and the Tea Party people and almost all of the Reagan Democrats simply getting off the Titanic in Ireland because we know the Captain and Crew are going to sail the damn thing right into an iceberg. n n"If you don't sail with us, you won't get to New York" we are told. So what — the ship's not going to get there either — Romney didn't win, did he — and sometimes it is better to stand on the wharf even if there isn't another ship going where you wish to go. I am of the opinion that it is people like me who is waving the GOP a fond farewell as it sails out over the horizon, never to be seen again.
Ed writes, "As I understand it — and I am not from Florida — the Florida GOP Legislature redrew his district in a way that very much didn't help him. If I am wrong on this I will stand corrected but that is my understanding of what happened." n nYou stand corrected, Ed. The Legislature did not have full control over the redrawing of the districts last year. They were initially drawn by the Legislature but they were subject to a provision of the Florida constitution adopted by the electorate on Democ-rat initiative in 2010 which, shall we say, took away the authority of the Legislature to draw "outrageous" lines. The district went from an R+3 district to an R+1 district due to this initiative, but this was NOT the fault of the Republican majority but the Democ-rats masquerading as a "good government" force. n nAs to those who thought of Romney as some kind of RINO and didn't vote they'll have to live with the consequences along with the rest of us. And too bad for all of us. n n
If we have any hope of ever getting moderate white women to vote Republican, we will have to drop the social issues. They dislike the Christian right, anti-abortionists, and gay-bashers, and they will not be convinced otherwise. Since when did the cause of liberty require the criminalization of abortion and an anti-gay agenda?
Why don't we just abandon everything and start writing our checks to the DNC?