Sen. Claire McCaskill just got lucky.
...the winner of the Republican primary was the wingnuttiest of the three wingnuts in the race.Karl Rove cannot be happy.
Read it at Mother Jones
Tea Party Shoots Itself in Foot Again
Kevin Drum
...the winner of the Republican primary was the wingnuttiest of the three wingnuts in the race.Karl Rove cannot be happy.
3 comments:
How about UMKC Economists educating Claire McCaskill?
Rove and the rest of the Republican establishment early on saw Romney as the most electable Republican candidate (in terms of ideology he was clearly more moderate than anyone except Huntsman) and then most or less forced him on the Republican base. The trick wasn't simply funding Romney but by funding his opponents as well. Mitt could never get above 40% support so the GOP establishment propped up multiple conservative challengers. If any one got too popular they were quickly beaten down, but by keeping the anti-Romney vote split between two or three different candidates, Romney won a plurality of votes for the win.
In 2010, the Republicans had a Senate majority snatched from them by tea party candidates losing winnable Senate seats in DE, NV and CO. If the tea party does this again in MO, IN or other states to muff a Senate takeover, I'd wager we'll see Rove and company manhandle Senate (and perhaps some House) primaries the same way they hijacked this year's presidential nomination. We'd see massive funding the establishment Republican of course, but also the funding multiple tea party challengers to split (Or dilute) the anger. Since they're flush with cash, Rove surrogates may start funding the most left-wing and/oor scandal-prone Democratic primary candidate as a failsafe. In extremis, I can see the GOP establishment quietly supporting "Top 2" nonpartisan primaries in order to dilute the power of Republican base voters.
The challenge will be, of course, how to frame all this as an attack on elite liberalism so the rubes will think its a great idea.
Beo,
I left a quewstion for you at MMR - I hope that you are kind enough to answer it.
CA
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