FL-Sen: A Toehold For Dead-Enders?

I don't want to concern-troll the GOP, but the primary race in Florida between popular Governor Charlie Crist and right-wing former House Speaker Marco Rubio could be a defining moment for their party. Rubio starts out way behind the more well-known Crist, who has high approval ratings in the Sunshine State. But Crist's support for the stimulus package has led to a revolt among the hard right, with some GOP leaders, like Jim DeMint and Mike Huckabee, breaking for Rubio, straw polls among Republican activists trending his way, and the Club For Growth threatening to play in the primary:

"We recently interviewed Marco Rubio and were impressed," said Club president David Keating. "We are very concerned about the two major tax increases Charlie Crist recently signed and believe there's no excuse for his active support of the Obama big-government 'stimulus' spending bill. We are actively considering the race."

The Club had previously been planning on a different major project for the 2010 Senate primary season: former Rep. Pat Toomey's challenge to then-GOP Sen. Arlen Specter in the Republican primary. But now that Specter has become a Democrat in order to avoid that very same primary, Florida might now be the new Pennsylvania.

The latest poll from the race has Crist well in front, but among those who know both Crist and Rubio (who has a comparatively low name ID), it's a virtual tie. The Club for Growth could easily pull this one off. And while Rubio could win statewide, Florida Democrats have a far better chance beating him than Charlie Crist, who has bipartisan appeal. There's a reason the NRSC already endorsed Crist; they know they'd have to spend millions to keep the seat if he gets bumped in the primary.

PA-Sen: Toomey's In

Arlen Specter's Senatorial career ends today.

Pat Toomey, who as a little-known congressman nearly defeated Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2004 primary, announced Wednesday that he will mount another challenge when Specter seeks the Republican nomination for a sixth term next year.

Toomey, who stepped down Monday as president of the Washington-based Club for Growth, appealed to his conservative base in a statement released just before 8 a.m., while Toomey made a series of TV appearances in the Philadelphia area.

"Pennsylvanians deserve a voice in the U.S. Senate that will honor our values and fight for limited government, individual freedom and fiscal responsibility. I will be that voice," Toomey said.

The silliness of Toomey's claim to fiscal responsibility (do the names George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, all of whom raised the national debt to record levels, ring a bell?) notwithstanding, I don't see how he loses the primary. He lost 51-49 in 2004 and the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has since gotten much more conservative, as moderates left for the Democratic Party in droves. Specter's going to go relentlessly negative and paint Toomey as a Wall Street tool, but he's toast. Toomey will be the nominee, and hopefully we'll put the best Democrat possible against him, because whoever has the D next to his name will be heavily favored against that extremist.

The Specter Of A Primary

Arlen Specter knew that he was going to get a primary contender, and he supported the stimulus bill anyway (after extracting a bunch of concessions). The fact that Pat Toomey, who came this close to beating him in 2004, had dropped out of the race prior to the stimulus conversations probably made it easier for him to make the decision. No more, however:

Former Congressman Pat Toomey (R, PA-15), current Club for Growth President, just announced on Bobby Gunther Walsh’s 1-On-1 Show, WAEB, 790AM, that a Primary challenge to Senator Arlen Specter is “now back on the table.”

Mr. Toomey acknowledged that “Senator Specter cast the deciding vote on the very worrisome stimulus Bill, when he could have negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama for more productive tax cuts and less wasteful spending.” Pennsylvanians need to do some soul searching about who will really represent us in the Senate.

There are enough crazies in the Republican Party in Pennsylvania - most of the sane ones left for the Democrats - that Toomey could win. And when I say "win", I mean win the primary and the right to be pummeled worse than Rick Santorum in the general election. So I can think of worse things happening.

The flip side, of course, is that Specter will need to be more mindful of protecting his right flank, making him less likely to side with Democrats on a lot of policy between now and the primary. But he's a stubborn mule, and if it suits him I don't see him totally breaking away.

...no matter the opponent, Specter's re-election chances are in peril. Jonathan Singer has an interesting theory:

So what can Specter do at this point? It seems unlikely to me that he would opt against running for a sixth term in the Senate -- that just doesn't seem like the Arlen Specter we have all come to know over the years. But he has to realize that he wouldn't have much of a shot in a Republican primary against Toomey, even as he would would have a shot at reelection running as an independent (nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans want to see him reelected).

I don't know enough about Pennsylvania election law to determine whether Specter could pull a Joe Lieberman -- running in his party's primary, but holding out the possibility of running on his own ticket in the event he lost the primary -- but I'd imagine that Specter's team already knows the answer. It may be that Specter would even forgo the attempt to run in a Republican primary against Toomey or a similarly strong conservative. Then again, Specter isn't one who has tended to give up on fights in his career, so maybe he would opt to enter what appears to be a nearly unwinnable primary just to prove his political courage. Either way, this is shaping up to be one of the most interesting races of the cycle.

Republicans Using Cheney To Fix Cheney Problem

It's kind of a bad sign when you're trying to save a ridiculously Republican seat in a special election and your ace in the hole is Dick Cheney. Fourthbranch can still raise money, but it's not like he's ever been an enthusiastic campaigner - he's not much for, you know, people.

But this is of course where the GOP stands right now - in trouble of losing House races in the whitest areas of Mississippi - and starting to acknowledge their historically bad position.

The stakes in the 1st District special election couldn't be higher, strategically or symbolically. The loss of a traditionally GOP seat to a Democrat would be the third in a special election this spring and the second in the Deep South after the May 3 victory of Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-La.).

Rank-and-file Republicans say that would force a day of reckoning for their leadership.

"When you connect three dots in anything, that's a bad thing. This connects the dots. At that point, everybody's got to come together and have a come-to-Jesus meeting," said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), a retiring centrist who will help form a new advisory panel at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"It's a time of sober reflection and, to some extent, resolve. I hope these special elections are a wake-up call," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), the leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

The fact that Dick Friggin' Cheney is being sent on the campaign trail is a sign that the wake-up call is so far not being heard. Same with this little quip by Roy Blunt on one of the Sunday shows:

BLITZER: When it comes to domestic economic issues, what is the major difference between President Bush's policies, what he wants to do, and what John McCain would do if he were president?

BLUNT: Well, I think what John McCain wants to do is continue these pro-growth tax policies that our friends on the other side have been talking...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But that's what President Bush wants to do too.

BLUNT: And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.

BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?

BLUNT: It would be. I think it would be. And I think that's a good thing.

The same with the outside Republican allies, airing ads in Senate primaries attacking Republicans who favor SCHIP.

They don't seem to recognize that this is their entire PROBLEM with the electorate - Bush's failed economic plans, Cheney's imperialist neoconservatism, Republican obstruction on popular initiatives like children's health care. This is WHY they're in the hole they're in - it's unlikely employing the SAME methods will get them out of it. This is why practically no Republican is safe in November. This is why Republicans who look forthrightly at the situation will rally to the Democratic position. This is why there's the chance of a realignment election.

California Election Roundup 5-7-08

• CA-03: Bill Durston may be unopposed in the June 3 primary, but he's running very hard and trying to pick up as many decline-to-state voters as possible. He's actually running a GOTV operation. The gambit here is to prove to donors and the political establishment that CA-03 is competitive. I also think it makes sense just as practice for the general and for name recognition.

• CA-04: The Club for Growth, whose record this year in primaries is actually a little mixed, has released an ad attacking Doug Ose in his race against Tom McClintock. There's plenty of outside money on both sides in this one.

• CA-42: Communications Workers of America, Southern California Council has endorsed Ron Shepston. It's somewhat notable considering that Ed Chau got the Cal Labor Fed endorsement.

Anything else you're hearing, please put it in the comments. This is an open-source elections thread.

Peggy Noonan Admits Republican Voters Are Idiots

My friends, we are witnessing, in slow motion, the crackup of the fragile Republican coalition. And it's delightful to watch.

The two main groups in conflict are the economic royalists, the conservatives motivated by greed and keeping their dominance over the poor, and the theocrats, motivated by making state-sponsored religion the law of the land, removing gays from the country and banning abortion. There's always been an uneasy truce between these two camps, but the 2008 election is putting them in conflict. And the best example of this is Peggy Noonan's column in today's Wall Street Journal.

Noonan's subject was Mitt Romney's highly offensive speech on (how there's not enough) faith in America. It was very clear that, far from being a speech about the separation of church and state, it was about how you better have a church, so long as Mitt Romney wants to be the state. Today the Romney campaign refused to acknowledge whether or not atheists have a place in America. And Peggy Noonan speculates why Romney, who represents more of the economic royalist wing, felt the need to insult people who don't share this feeling of faith. By the way, Noonan liked the speech because she essentially likes Romney, but she lets her slip show at the end:

There was one significant mistake in the speech. I do not know why Romney did not include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. We were founded by believing Christians, but soon enough Jeremiah Johnson, and the old proud agnostic mountain men, and the village atheist, and the Brahmin doubter, were there, and they too are part of us, part of this wonderful thing we have. Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote.

My feeling is we've bowed too far to the idiots. This is true in politics, journalism, and just about everything else. (emphasis mine)

La Noonan couldn't have made it more clear than that; theocrats and so-called "values voters" are idiots, whose intolerance doesn't fit with the model of America. Of course, if any Democrat said this, there would be pure outrage. But that Noonan said it reflects the strain between the theocons and the econocons.

We can also see this in the attacks on Mike Huckabee that we've seen this week. They were incredibly coordinated and transparent. All of a sudden, every traditional media outlet ran with the Wayne Dumond story. When's the last time you saw any giant news story triggered by something in the Huffington Post? It doesn't happen. This was clearly opposition research run amok, as suddenly the royalist wing saw Huckabee, a charismatic theocon, as a threat. We're now seeing the Club for Growth drop ads in Iowa and South Carolina. These ads pretty much are the manifestation of this breakdown in the Republican coalition.

We've heard talk about a third-party candidate from the theocon wing entering the race if Rudy Giuliani or someone insufficient to their beliefs were named the nominee. We're seeing how the other side of this battle fights back; through insults and negative ads. Economic royalists think they own the GOP. They aren't taking kindly to the theocon wing thinking they deserve anything more than lip service.

This is going to be a full-fledged crack-up, and it's about time. It's great news as we move forward toward a more progressive nation.