RSS Feed MenuGive Pat Toomey credit for this:
The declared challenger for the GOP nomination for Arlen Specter’s Senate seat is willing to bet a career on a proposition that other conservatives only assert from the safety of the sidelines.
Toomey is betting that Republicans would do better in a blue-leaning state like Pennsylvania if they purged the last remaining moderates from the party. He’s (again) challenging Arlen Spectator – and this time, unlike last, he may well succeed. Just as Ned Lamont succeeded against Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary.
The grand problem that follows, for Toomey as for Lamont, is then: what happens next? In the Connecticut example, Democrats escaped lightly from the Lamont blunder. Instead of delivering the seat to the Republicans, Lieberman ran as an independent Democrat and won, and since then has voted more or less along the Democratic party line. In Pennyslvania, by contrast, the defeat of Specter almost certainly will mean the loss of both Pennsylvania Senates to the Democrats for a generation.
Toomey theorizes that Republicans would do better in Pennsylvania if they were more outspokenly prolife and defiantly opposed to the Obama economic plan. The reality: If nominated, Toomey’s prolife views would cost him what remains of traditional Republican support in the Philadelphia suburbs and his anti-stimulus stance would damage him with working-clsas voters elsewhere in the state.
Take a look at this Quinnipiac survey:
Penn voters approve the Obama stimulus plan 50-37. They approve of Arlen Specter too, especially Independents and Democrats. And of course President Obama remains popular in the state.
On the other hand, maybe a Toomey nomination and subsequent defeat is just the kind of learning experience Republicans need to undergo. You might think we have had enough hard lessons as it is. But no. I’m reminded of that old 1960s joke about the liberal judge who decalred that the experience of being himself mugged had not changed his lenient views. Punchline: An old lady at the back of the hall shouts, “Mug him again.” That seems to be the GOP’s impending fate as well.
Chekote // Apr 17, 2009 at 2:27 pm
“The old Reagan coalition has already fallen apart–and like Humpty Dumpty, it ain’t gonna be put back together again.”Completely agree. The country has changed a lot since 1980. There just aren’t as many union members, blue collar workers. The GOP needs to go upscale. I thought they “got the message” but apparently not.
mlindroo // Apr 17, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I don’t think the Republican Party has been “destroyed” by a particular ideological view, say, abandoning small government or pushing socially conservative policies. The current problems have more to do with incompetence and corruption in 2000-2006. GW Bush would be every bit as unpopular if he had deferred to the Dems at every turn while still screwing up Iraq, Katrina, the handling of the Wall Street crisis etc.. Conversely, conservatives would undoubtedly be hailing him (and Karl Rove) as a genius if the Iraq occupation had been an effortless, smashing success since it would have cemented the GOP’s post-9/11 stranglehold on “national security” military voters.For the same reason, I would advise caution when assuming Obama’s political views are so “extreme” or “un-American” he cannot possibly remain popular. If the economy is doing OK four years from now and there are no major foreign policy crises, he will win while hardly breaking a sweat. MARCU$
ireign // Apr 17, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Republicans have 41 votes. They don’t have the luxury of running primaries on ideological grounds. Specter isn’t worthless. Without Specter, Clarence Thomas isn’t confirmed. Specter isn’t the most likeable or ideologically consistent politician in the world but without a primary, we keep his seat so we can focus resources on other states. There is one primary Republicans should be gunning for but its in Kentucky where Bunning is going to lose a safe seat for Republicans unless he loses in a primary.
ireign // Apr 17, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Sinz, “moderates” such as Ted Stevens spent heavily on projects such as the bridge to nowhere which helped ruin the Republican brand. Everyone in the Republican party bears some culpability for the party’s decline. Mlindroo gets it right. However, Frum is increasingly becoming the wrong messenger. Rightly or wrongly, he favored a bellecose foreign policy that electorally is currently very unpopular. I think he was right but it is kind of difficult for him to argue that Republicans should sacrifice religious conservatives when one can easily make the argument that they should sacrifice foreign policy conservatives such as Frum. We shouldn’t be throwing anyone overboard right now.
sinz54 // Apr 18, 2009 at 5:54 pm
ireign: In fact, we’re hearing that exact argument from those “Tea Party” protesters who are fans of Ron Paul or the Constitution Party: Kick the “neo-cons” out, and withdraw from foreign entanglements.However, I wish that folks like you would stop turning Frum’s point upside down: Frum *never* advocated throwing anyone out of the GOP. Neither did Arlen Specter. Neither did I. What we are pleading, is for the rabid partisans in the GOP base to stop trying to throw *us* out by sticking a “RINO” label on us as a way of marking us for excommunication. We are the ones who are in danger of being kicked out.Over on RedState.com, they’re saying that unless you support the pro-life and anti-gay stances, you’re a “RINO.” Right now, the GOP base is engaged in this suicidal “RINO hunt”: Let’s throw anyone out of the GOP who isn’t ideologically pure; and after we’ve shrunk back to a small cadre of ideologues, why the voters will just flock to us because they’ll admire how pure and noble we sound. NOT.GONNA.HAPPEN.In a two-party system, ideological purity has never won elections, because no 51% cross-section of the electorate is ideologically pure. The GOP base should be reminded that Reagan won in 1980 by promising to leave Social Security and Medicare intact. Which, as President, he did.
ireign // Apr 19, 2009 at 7:50 am
Actually, I think Frum is trying to discount other positions. Namely social conservatives. Which is fine but he leaves himself open to counter charges. Frum, was also one of the biggest opponents of Harriet Miers and the immigration compromise. So he has not been necessarily ideologically consistent. It seems a little like frontrunning. I haven’t followed the “Tea Party” protesters but I haven’t heard anything about neo-cons from them. Sinz, I do not typically read redstate but I just went over there and I don’t see the word Rino mentioned once.
mlindroo // Apr 19, 2009 at 1:40 pm
> I wonder why it is that you liberal Republicans continue to > declare conservatives “so far out of touch that there isn’t > even any point in debating that with you” while your own > candidates fare worse than conservatives in virtually every > election?If you mean Senate elections, moderate GOP senators in Blue states do currently have a problem since voters tend to punish them for the misdeeds of the national [conservative!] Republican leaders. In 2008, four of the nine most moderate Senators failed to get reelected. “Good riddance” you say. But the cold, hard truth is that it is very difficult to assemble a majority if only conservative candidates are deemed acceptable. The GOP has few pickup opportunities left in Red states, where hard line conservatives might be able to win a general election. There is Mary Landrieu’s seat in Louisiana, both seats in Montana and Arkansas, maybe Ben Nelson in Nebraska and little else. But recent results indicate candidates such as Rick Santorum are just way too conservative for e.g. Pennsylvania.MARCU$