WaPo will soon have this on its Web site. It is running above the Fold, first column on the right. THE LEAD STORY!!!
(reposted)
Seems the GOP leadership is having trouble recruiting candidates for the Senate. Gee how sad.
LINK NOW UP:
linked text
Wassup with that?
WASHINGTON--Republican politicians in multiple states have recently decided not to run for the U.S. Senate next year, stirring anxiety among Washington operatives about the effectiveness of the party's recruiting efforts and whether this signals a broader decline in GOP congressional prospects.
Prominent Republicans in recent days passed up races in North Dakota and West Virginia, both GOP-leaning states with potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Earlier, Republican recruiters on Capitol Hill and at the White House failed to lure their first choices to run in Florida, Michigan and Vermont.
UPDATE: LA TIMES CHIMES IN!!!!! Not on their Web site yet either, but should be soon:
Los Angeles Times
... Promising candidates in states as far flung as Florida, West Virginia and Nebraska have spurned pleas from the White House and party officials. The latest came last week, when Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va., decided not to run for the Senate against the longtime Democratic incumbent, Robert C. Byrd, despite an intense drive to recruit her.
``The wind is not at our back, it's in our face,'' said Glen Bolger, a GOP pollster. ``If you're a candidate making an assessment about challenging an incumbent, having wind in your face is clearly a negative factor in the decision.''
The string of rejections comes as some leaders of the conservative movement have been deeply demoralized by Bush's nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court. That has added to GOP fears that two key elements of Rove's grand plan for expanding the Republican majority -- recruiting strong candidates and mobilizing the party base -- could be unraveling.
That anxiety was heightened amid new speculation that Rove could face criminal charges arising from an investigation of who disclosed the identity of a CIA operative to journalists in mid-2003.
It adds up to a political landscape that appears far different from the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, when Bush was riding high and Democrats were on the defensive.
The gloom and doom is spreading ...
A lot of the fingerpointing is aimed at Elizabeth Dole, campaign chair for the Senate, but ...
BACK TO THE ARTICLE from WAPO:
Last month, White House political strategist Karl Rove flew to Bismarck to implore the North Dakota's popular Republican governor, John Hoeven, to challenge Sen. Kent Conrad (D). Rove could argue with some compelling numbers: Bush won 63 percent of the state's presidential votes last year, and Hoeven trounced his Democratic opponents in 2000 and 2004. But the governor said no thanks, and Republicans concede they have no strong second choice.
Perhaps no state has frustrated the GOP elite more than Florida, where Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is trying for a second term after winning his first with 51 percent of the vote. After failing to convince Rep. Katherine Harris to stay out of the race, GOP leaders began a public search for an alternative candidate. State House Speaker Allan Bense was courted by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) before bowing out. Dole took a private plane to New York in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade conservative commentator and former Florida representative Joe Scarborough to make the race.
Many Democrats and some independents revile Harris for the role she played, as Florida secretary of state, in favoring Bush in the 2000 recount process. But she has enough hard-core conservative fans to scare away other Republican Senate hopefuls, and Democrats are gleefully watching the dispute.
No Republican who has opted out of a 2006 candidacy has publicly cited the level of support from national Republicans or the general political environment as a reason. Potential candidates have a variety of factors figuring into whether to make a race. Still, to some analysts, the decisions suggest deeper currents at work.
``Is it poor recruiting or a bad environment? Probably both,'' said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the independent Cook Political Report.
the article continues ...
A senior Republican familiar with the recruiting process agreed the climate has shifted for the GOP because of a confluence of problems from Iraq to Hurricane Katrina and high gasoline prices: ``Looking at polls from June or July and then looking at them now, the deterioration is really bad.''
Another Republican, pollster Tony Fabrizio, said a recruiting chill was inevitable. Candidates ``aren't stupid,'' he said. ``They see the political landscape. You are asking them to make a huge personal sacrifice. It's a lot easier to make that sacrifice if you think there's a rainbow at the end.''