So I put on my wading boots and headed over to Red State to see what they thought about the 3 primary battles (and counting) that the Republicans were looking at against incumbent Republicans in the Senate in 2010 (PA, AZ, KY), mostly, about the recent news that John McCain was getting a primary challenger from the right in the form of rabid insane anti-immigrant founder of the "Minutemen", Chris Simcox. I knew that the online rightwingers would be supportive of Toomey in his bid to send Sen. Specter (R-PA) into early retirement, and was interested in seeing what they thought about the developing battle in Arizona.
Needless to say, I am absolutely ecstatic about the state of affairs in the comments, as a majority of the comments reflect what we would expect, namely, that the online rightwing prefers to lose with a rightwing crazyperson than to win with anything less.
More analysis and specific quotations on the flip...
Some quick background for those not as addicted to these horse races known as congressional races. 2010 is shaping up to be yet another good year for Democrats in the Senate, with various prognosticators from Cook to Sabato to Rothenberg showing upwards of 7 or 8 vulnerable Republicans (with KY, NH, MO and PA looking as serious flips and FL, OH, NC as having serious potential).
Meanwhile the Dems really don't have much difficulty on the 2010 Senate horizon other than Dodd (D-CT), and he has the benefit of being from a seriously blue state. If he continues to trail in 2010 look for him to gracefully step down rather than cost his party a seat. Other states had the potential to be vulnerable (Reid in NV and the appointees in NY, CO, IL and DE, but there are no legit Republicans that have much of a shot).
Practically, if Simcox beats McCain in Arizona or Toomey beats Specter in Pennsylvania those seats are going to be wins for big blue, whereas if the incumbent keeps their seat they are more than likely going to stay in the red column.
Even the crapulescent head of the NRSC, John Cornyn, said that the Dems are looking strong to pick up seats for the third straight cycle and surpass the 60 seat threshold. So Ericson did what Markos has done and continues to do, tries to focus the horde on primaries where the incumbent party can still hold the seat in the general. (As an aside, in each of the 3 races where the craptastic Club for Growth supported a primary challenger in 2008 against a "moderate" Republican, the Democrat beat the CtG radical in the general, flipping otherwise safe seats to the Democratic column).
Check out the reader responses to Ericson's rare rational political request:
With all due respect, McCain is the self proclaimed leader of the RINOs in the US Senate and has been a member of the RMSP, (He was a recipient of the Chaffee award given by the RMSP in 2007 or 2006...I don’t remember which for sure). As our so called leader and standard bearer in 2008, I can’t think of a better head to place on a pike to send a message to the rest of sqishes that this is a party of conservatives for conservatives and their crawling in bed with Pelosi and Reid without consequences is at an end!
I don’t know Simcox’s positions much beyond his work on the border but what I’ve heard from him on most subjects coupled with the fact that he has been able to assemble enough Republicans in AZ to break the iron grip on the state party from McCain and his crowd are all I need to know. The fact that he’s running against McCain is the only information I need to throw my full support behind him 100%.
Love it. But there is more:
This is more of the same BS we’ve dealt with since I’ve been in Politics...The idea that we need to support people who do nothing but stand in the way of accomplishing our goals because they can win is a fools errand. "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly".
When McCain, Specter, Collins, Graham, Voinovich etc win...we lose as a party because we end up looking like the Democrats...it’s what these Tea Parties were really about IMHO...there is no difference in the Parties because of people like those mentioned and we have no voice...
Good riddance to all of them if they all lose.
Yeah, losing a ton of Republican incumbents and replacing them with Democrats will certainly teach everyone a very important lesson, but methinks not the lesson he thinks it will...
John McCain is only one of many "good ol’ boys" who need to be replaced in the 2010 elections. He consistently stands against conservatism. His phony pretense of being a conservative has come to a head in this state. When his name was mentioned at the Tea Party I attended, it was met with a chorus of "boos". The people of the State of Arizona will speak "if" there are fair elections in 2010. John McCain will go down in a ball of flames.
To you in the Republican Party who believe that keeping these "phony conservatives" in power is an attribute to re-energizing the Party, you are simply naive and totally ignorant of the facts concerning the Border States. People like John McCain have to be, and by the Grace of God, will be defeated.
That last one is from a Arizona resident who has pledged to help Simcox, and says there are a whole bunch just like him ready to do their part.
The main proprietor of Red State, Eric Ericson, a rightwing loon whose politics are virtually indistinguishable from Limbaugh or Cheney or Cantor or any of the other various clowns, actually had a decent point, and one which we had about 4 years ago, namely, that first we need "more" Dems before we can start focusing on "better" Dems. However, much to his dismay (and the electoral prospects of his party), the following quotation best sums up the thinking of the dozens of readers who actually visit his site:
An endorsement of McCain is in essence an agreement with the direction he has tried to take the party. I think we can agree that his brand of politics has not only damaged the party image, but has exposed us to very severe long-term reputational risk. The argument for McCain appears to be the same argument which falsely led us into the last election and ultimately our contemporary wilderness.
It appears that they are like us, only about a decade behind. They haven't learned that their political position on immigration is a massive electoral loser, that Latinos are abandoning them in droves (even the Cubans!), that the party that loses voters under the age of 35 is positioning itself to truly be a rump party, and they don't get what we do, namely, we do not support primaries against people like Ben Nelson (D-NE) because we know he is the best we can do and that a progressive will not win a general election in Nebraska. We primary only those people whose seats we will not lose to Republicans (like supporting Edwards over Wynn in Maryland and Lamont over Lieberman in Connecticut).
The Republican party is in shambles, and is not even close to turning the corner back to electoral viability.