May
12
Unbelievable (Updated)
May 12, 2009 | 9 Comments
I don’t get it. I simply do not understand the major malfunction of the National Republican Party. For every step forward, it decides that it must instantly shoot itself in the foot and take a staggering couple of steps ass-backwards.
Kathryn Lopez reports:
U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), issued the following statement today regarding Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s announcement that he will run for the United States Senate in 2010:
“I am pleased today to endorse Governor Charlie Crist for the United States Senate. With his record of reform in Florida, I know that Governor Crist will bring a fresh perspective to Washington in our efforts to fight for lower taxes, less government, and new job creation for all Americans. Charlie Crist is a tireless advocate on behalf of all Floridians and one of only three Governors who earned an ‘A’ from the CATO Institute for his efforts to restrain spending and cut taxes last year.
“While I believe Marco Rubio has a very bright future within the Republican Party, Charlie Crist is the best candidate in 2010 to ensure that we maintain the checks and balances that Floridians deserve in the United States Senate. Governor Crist is a dedicated public servant and a dynamic leader, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee will provide our full support to ensure that he is elected the next United States Senator from Florida.”
Admittedly I don’t know much about Rubio (other than the fact that he looks barely older than me), although being endorsed by Reihan Salam does give me pause. But he can’t possibly be any worse than Charlie Crist. So why on Earth is the NRSC getting involved in the primary at this early stage of the game? Why get involved in a primary at all?
Of course the party sycophants will make some noise about Crist being more electable, and having a more widely known name, and how the GOP has to win this race OMG!!!!!!!!
Have you twits learned nothing from the past eight years? Did you miss that whole Arlen Specter thing that just happened? How can you manage to run a party with your heads continually shoved so far up your posteriors that you can’t possibly have seen daylight since you signed the Contract With America?
I am sick of this. Can we please get some new blood at the top of this party while there is any party left to salvage?
Further thoughts here from R.S. McCain. I think “Treacherous Bastards” could catch on as the title of the new GOP Senate barbershop quartet. Of course the quartet will represent all that remains of the Senate GOP by the time we”re through here.
Update: In the comment section, largebill observes:
Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea which candidate is more conservative. However, I’ve learned that whichever one the national party endorses will be more liberal.
This is the ultimate indictment of the national party leadership at this point in time. I simply don’t understand how they can remain so clueless after all this time. Where has endorsing “moderates” gotten the GOP? And yet the party will continue this suicide march towards irrelevancy as long as it buys into this notion that it can only support “electable” candidates, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.
Long story short, the national party committees have no business being involved in a primary.
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The national GOP mechanisms (RSCC, RSCC, RNC, etc) all confuse moderate (meaning liberal) with being more electable. They assume candidates who actually believe that “crazy conservative” stuff won’t appeal to the masses. Problem is when Republicans try to win elections as Democrats-lite those who vote for that stuff (more government, pro-abortion, etc) will just vote for the real liberal instead of the half-hearted one. If we want to attract voters we need to offer something markedly different than the Dems not a different shade of the same BS.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea which candidate is more conservative. However, I’ve learned that whichever one the national party endorses will be more liberal.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea which candidate is more conservative. However, I’ve learned that whichever one the national party endorses will be more liberal.
That is the ultimate indictment of the national GOP, largebill. How sad.
Looks like I’m going to have to register as a Republican now so I can vote for Rubio in the primary. The only way I’ll ever cast another vote for Charlie Crist after him accepting porkulus money is if his opponent’s Kendrick Meek in the general.
This is going to play out very interestingly.
Crist is leaving the Gov’s office for one reason and one reason only. He is going to attempt to follow Obama’s path to the White House. A few quick years in the Senate to get that platform and then a presidential run before he becomes tainted with too many years in Washington.
If he were to win in Nov 2010 in a Senate campaign, could he possibly get away with then forming a presidential exploratory committee as soon as spring 2011, which his potential competitors will be doing? Wow. I dunno. That is something his Democratic opponent will surely play up against him in the Senate campaign. But it also just may work. He’d be a sitting senator running for president but yet not too linked to DC yet.
Rubio is a strong candidate. Interestingly, he was one of the few vocal Florida Huckabee supporters in 2008. Huckabee has returned that favor with fundraisers down here already.
I don’t know how it all will play out. But let me say this. Issues aside, don’t underestimate Crist. In many ways, he has the instincts that the GOP has been lacking. It took balls to publicly distance yourself from President Bush and the party insiders — prior to the elections of 2006. He did that. And it worked. How many other new Republicans were elected in the bloodbath of 2006 where they lost Congress and many governor seats?
Similarly, though McCain was a losing candidate, it’s pretty clear Crist’s support for McCain at just the right time swung the Florida primary and started the momentum for McCain only weeks after he seemed DOA.
And I understand on principle why one might not respect Crist’s support for the stimulus package from the GOP perspective. But again, he’s making the gamble that, regardless of ideological position, lukewarm support for it from afar will give him an edge with the moderate voters he will need in a statewide campaign.
I’m not going on record to endorse Crist. I don’t know yet. He certainly has his faults. However, he has been somewhat effective on the local level. And he is a very savvy politician. In fact, he has a lot of political/tactical abilities that the GOP’s current batch of national leaders seem to lack.
It seems an odd play to run for the Senate simply in the interests of setting up a presidential campaign. Up until last year, no one had ascended to the presidency from the Senate in nearly half a century. Typically presidents come from the governors’ mansions, and Crist himself would surely be re-elected next year.
As for Crist in 2006, he did have the advantage of following in the footsteps of another Bush that was a tad more popular. I wouldn’t exactly say that being the maverick is what’s made him so popular in the state, but I concede that I’m not as close to the situation.
I does seem odd given that historical fact. But as I said about Crist, he’s not one to follow the typical playbook. And in some ways he’s proven to have good political instincts. I think he believes he learned something from the election of 2008. I think he’s wants that platform of Senator but realizes it’s a campaign edge not to have been in DC too long. Obama had both of those going for him.
We’ll see. But I promise you this guy has bigger ambitions. Otherwise, why leave being the sitting governor of the 4th biggest state in America with an easy re-election on the way to become a junior senator? Otherwise, it doesn’t add up.
I lived in Hillsdale, MI for a spell and got to sit in when the college invited various conservative big wigs. The speaker would go through the usual speech about the bankruptcy of liberalism in fine form. When there was a Q&A, certain students posed the question that went something like: “If liberalism is so bad as you say and as we all agree, then why aren’t career conservative politicians challenging them in a meaningful way?” This often got a pause from the guest speaker. I thought the students were being typical uppity loud-mouths at the time, but in retrospect, they were on to something.
[...] clearly felt the same way — No Sheeples Here, American Power, Down With Tyranny, Dad29 and CrankyCon quickly jumped in — that, three days later, I launched Not One Red Cent, a group blog devoted [...]
[...] clearly felt the same way—No Sheeples Here, American Power, Down With Tyranny, Dad29 and CrankyCon quickly jumped in—that, three days later, I launched Not One Red Cent, a group blog devoted [...]