Big campaign news is not ordinarily made mid-week. In May. In the year BEFORE the election.
And yet there we were this week, watching one of the leading national figures in the GOP as he endorsed a conservative alternative to the establishment choice for the Senate in Florida, who happens to be the state's moderate governor.
Then, within hours on the same day, we found out that one of the most recognizable names in the U.S. Senate, who became national front page news by changing parties to the Democrats last month, had drawn a primary challenge, and a prominent one, at that.
Both of these stories are bigger than the individual headlines would suggest. To use a sports analogy, both of these events have the potential to be game changers.
PA-SEN
Joe Sestak's decision to force newly-minted Democratic incumbent Arlen Specter into a primary is not a decision borne of political expediency. It would be in defiance of party leaders, who seemed intent on clearing the primary for the new member of Team Blue.
Ironically, Democrats may be the biggest beneficiary of yesterday's move by Sestak. To the incredible frustration of many in the Democratic base, Specter made a rather inauspicious entrance into the Democratic party, insisting on his independence from his new party.
However, Joe Sestak's decision to enter the Democratic Primary may well have put the brakes on Specter's self-avowed Independent streak. Now, to be fair to the senior senator from Pennsylvania, there were already signs that he was already settling in to his new surroundings. However, having a well-funded, well-known primary challenger means that Specter will pay an incredibly steep price for any future apostasy.
For one example, this may have changed the calculus on labor issues and health care issues. Consider this statement yesterday from AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale:
"When it is time to make an endorsement decision it will be made by Pennsylvania's workers based on the issues that are important to them including the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform"
Hmm...Did you say health care reform?
"It's whether Arlen will fight for the right issues," Sestak said. "Democrat or Republican. He helped derail health care plans without an alternative in the '90s. Maybe he's changed, but I'm not sure we can take that chance. We have to ask the question, ‘Will he be with the right policy that our president presently has put out there to retool our economy and health care and education through 2016.’"
If nothing else, Sestak's presence is an insurance policy against Arlen Specter becoming a Ben Nelson Democrat. Ben Nelson can survive as a Democrat in Nebraska, where political realities clearly override ideological considerations. In Pennsylvania?? It is a totally different ballgame.
Sestak's primary bid is not an unalloyed good. It opens up a U.S. House seat, albeit one that has been trending Democratic over the last few elections. Going one step further, the likely Democratic entrant for Sestak's House seat (state Rep. Bryan Lentz) opens up a state House seat in a chamber that is only held by the Democrats by a scant few seats. Of course, it is possible for Democrats to run the table in all of these races. But open seats are often more expensive, and their outcome considerably less certain, than the re-election of an incumbent.
It also goes without saying that a contested primary will drain resources from whomever emerges from the Specter-Sestak showdown. However, Pennsylvania is reasonably early on the primary calendar (unlike...say...New York or Florida, both of whom typically hold their primaries within 10 weeks of the general election). Any damage inflicted in the primary will almost certainly be survivable. It will also guarantee that it will be quite some time before the public conversation in Pennsylvania focuses on Pat Toomey.
FL-SEN
Wednesday's news that Mike Huckabee (along with Jeb Bush Jr.) was casting his lot with insurgent conservative candidate Marco Rubio in Florida was swallowed up a bit by both the Sotomayor announcement that preceded it and the Sestak decision that followed it.
But don't overlook it. It is a pretty big deal.
Marco Rubio has cast this race in very stark terms--his candidacy against the establishment candidate, Governor Charlie Crist, is an attempt to save the soul of the Republican Party. To hear Rubio tell it, he is on a one-man crusade to save the conservative base of the GOP from the clutches of RINO rule.
This week, one of the most visible figures in the current Republican Party, a guy who is seen as one of the top three frontrunners for his party's presidential nod in 2012, seems to have bought into the meme.
Looking at the 2008 Presidential campaign, it makes a great deal of sense that Huckabee buys into concept of the "war for the soul of the GOP."
Make the parallel--Charlie Crist is John McCain, a well-known figure in the party whose reputation is based almost as much on his rebellion from the party than his adherence to the party. A political figure who the establishment embraces, almost entirely on the argument of ELECTABILITY.
Of course, John McCain is a very sore subject for many on the right-wing. They stood by him out of necessity during the general election, but they did not hesitate to pile on the second the polls closed out West and Obama was projected the winner.
To hear the right-wing tell it, the GOP got crushed in 2008 because they nominated a guy that was too much like the Democrats. If only they had adhered to conservative principles...things would have been DIFFERENT. Therefore, a lot of true-believing conservatives are leery of a guy like Crist, and they don't necessarily buy the argument that they should get in line because he is better suited to win the seat for the GOP. They have heard that one before. And thanks to John Cornyn's best (worst?) efforts, they are hearing it again.
Meanwhile, in our extended analogy, Marco Rubio is...Mike Huckabee. The underdog who worked his way into the argument by making full-throated appeals to the base of the party. The guy who took years to become an overnight sensation. Ideologically, the two are cut from the same cloth, which might explain why Rubio was an early endorser of Huckabee's presidential campaign. It might also explain why Huckabee is apparently returning the favor.
Rubio's declaration that there is a war for the soul of the GOP may not merely have been the rhetoric of an underdog desperately trying to wedge his way into the race. Huckabee's decision to endorse Rubio in the race gives Rubio instant credibility, and Huckabee's status as one of the primary spokesman for the right-wing (particularly the Religious Right) gives instant credibility to Rubio's campaign rationale.
We will know in less than two months if Rubio's candidacy is more than a nuisance candidacy. Here is the simple test: come mid-July, watch Rubio's FEC reports. There is no doubt that Crist will outraise him. The governor's ability to raise cash is well established. The question is how much Rubio brings in. If it is in the seven-figure range, this may well surpass Pennsylvania as the primary campaign to watch.
ESPECIALLY if Jeb Bush follows his sons into the Rubio camp.
The bottom line is that even though Huckabee did not tear it up as a Presidential candidate in Florida last winter, his endorsement of the underdog has the potential to be a game-changing moment.
Another potential game changer in Election 2010 is John Cornyn, for reasons that have nothing to do with Rush or Newt. More on him later.