Daniel Larison is the only person I can find who is suitably acerbic about last night’s Republican fuckup in PA-12. As they did in the other recent special elections, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) ran against “Pelosi-Reid” and Obama, while the Democrats backed a Blue Dog. In this case, the Democrat, Critz, beat the Republican by 8 points.
I’ve seen the NRCC playbook firsthand for the last few years as a resident of NY-29, and it’s a useless waste of money. The underlying assumption of the strategy is that voters hate Nancy Pelosi with such conviction that merely linking her to the Democrat du jour is a sure winner. The NRCC makes sure that every ad includes an unflattering picture of Pelosi splashed across a shot of the Democratic candidate.
In addition to being borderline misogynist, those ads are almost wholly negative. They seek to prevent the election of a Democrat, not to promote the election of a Republican.
Here’s the question no Republicans seem to ask about the Pelosi-Reid strategy: If the country is in an anti-incumbent mood, why does the NRCC keep running a campaign that focuses almost entirely on the petty squabbles between incumbents in their party and the leadership of the Democrats in Congress?
Joey Maloney
Why are you asking a question when you already know the answer?
SiubhanDuinne
@Joey Maloney:
Oh, I think mistermix knows the answer just fine. But his point was, the *Republicans* don’t ever seem to ask the obvious question.
Moving over to the KY GOP Senate primary, I was amused to read that Trey Grayson’s staffers are claiming that Rand Paul refused to take Grayson’s concession phone call. It’s probably a nothing story, but it’s the kind of thing you hope is true, just so you can shout “You stay classy, Rand!”
Well, I do, anyhow. But I’m kind of a petty person.
Mary
There’s really nothing borderline about the misogyny.
The Grand Panjandrum
With no new ideas this is the only option they have right now. The organ grinder only knows one tune and the monkey ain’t dancing to it anymore.
Mike Kay
They can’t help themselves. The did the Pelosi thing (“san Francisco values”) as well in 2006 and 2008 on a national basis, and they lost over 50 seats in the combined elections.
Earl
@Mike Kay: What Mike said…
WereBear
Republicans weren’t really happy pretending to care about good governance and the oppressed.
It’s all about the Two Minute Hate. Why do you want them to be something they’re not!?!?!?
demo woman
Rand Paul is on TV and he’s going to run against Barack Obama cuz the President is not liked in Kentucky. The tea party message is important or something like that. WTF is the tea party message?
kommrade reproductive vigor
What Mike Kay said. Republican Statergery demonstrates the opposite of the learning curve.
Keep the gubbermint outa mah Medicare!
Cacti
@demo woman:
“We hate n**gers!”
Jeffro
@demo woman:
Tea Party message? “WE’RE OFF OUR MEDS!!” ?
Michael
@demo woman:
In a primary to replace one of the three weirdest, crankiest, oldest GOPers in the Senate, Kentucky picks a guy whose half-Nazi daddy has been on the public tit for decades as a congressman as part of an “anti incumbency” action.
And THAT is the crowning glory that is teabaggotism. Obviously, it is great news for Conservatives.
cleek
i haz a butthurt cuz the blakman and him commie helpers stold my dominance!
Mike Kay
The DC media’s tearful eulogies of Arlen Specter’s career are fascinating.
They’re taking it so personally. Call-girls and Rent-boys are more professional.
And for what? Arlen was a senator for 30 years and I can’t think of any piece of legislation that he passed.
Perhaps it’s projection: when they see arlen hitting the end of the line, they see their industry circling the drain.
Keith G
…NRCC keep running a campaign that focuses almost entirely on the petty squabbles….
kid bitzer
two narratives:
1) specter was a fake democrat, pa voters wanted a real progressive. lincoln was a dino; halter is a real progressive. murtha’s old district went for john mccain in 2008, went for a democrat last night. mitch mcconnell threw the republican machine behind grayson, the voters turned against him. ergo: huge win for progressives, huge black eye for republican leadership.
2) specter worked with obama, he got booted out. lincoln worked with obama, she’s fighting for her life. murtha was a democrat, his replacement is a democrat, so what? rand paul shows that the tea party is taking over the country! huge win for the tea-party! time to write obama’s obituary!
we’ll see this played out in the news coverage over the next few days. i’m pretty sure that the murdoch machine will succeed in pushing #2 to the top of the talking points.
especially if #14 is right about the d.c. media feeling snubbed by specter’s getting kicked to the curb.
debbie
For all their dependence on the likes of Luntz and focus groups, the Republicans again and again miss what’s most important: It’s not enough to be against things; you have to present an alternative. You have to be for something.
I don’t know what these guys were so busy doing with themselves during the 2008 campaign, but they sure weren’t listening to Obama. He had a plan for what he’d do that was different from what was being done at the time. McCain didn’t, and that’s why he lost.
Rage alone gets you nowhere. What are the Republicans offering now? A chance to go back to the totally discredited ways of the 2000’s? Do they really think a majority of the electorate wants to relive that?
Mike Kay
@demo woman: oh good! He’ll lose!
Last night’s results, all across the country, taught us one thing: all politics is local.
demo woman
From First Read: With Critz’s apparent victory, this becomes the SEVENTH-straight competitive special House contest that Democrats have won and the GOP has lost since 2008.
Had the outcome been different the head lines would have highlighted this contest. You betcha and also too. The incumbent loses headline is odd because what incumbent lost besides Specter and he wasn’t a long term dem.
cleek
they promise a return to the Constitution as it is written!
…which is proclaimed with the same fervor that you hear from people exhorting others to get back to a strict reading of the bible. ignorant fundamentalism, it’s the Republican way.
Cacti
@kid bitzer:
Lincoln’s been a pretty wishy-washy supporter of Obama.
kay
Not to mention that Jack Murtha tied himself to Nancy Pelosi.
They were like best buds, once Murtha came out against Iraq, and they were the anti-Bush tag team 2006 – 2008.
Republicans have a short attention span.
Mike Kay
@Keith G:
Beginning in 1968, they built a powerful propaganda machine, opened the money spigot, embraced
racism and sexism and fearthe southern strategy, during a time when americans lost faith in an activist government over watergate and vietnam, while greed and selfishness spiked, as the manufacturing base was gutted (people turn ugly when their standard of living declines).mellowjohn
poor tweetie looked absolutely crushed last night. heeheehee!
my narrative: democratic voters prefer democrats to retreads (specter), corporate lapdogs (lincoln), or blue dogs (the KY lite gov).
interesting – and not mentioned nearly enough – is that BOTH dems in the KY senate race got more votes than ru paul’s brother, rand.
kid bitzer
@21–
i totally agree. i’m not saying that’s *reality*; i’m just saying that it is the narrative that fox et al. will push.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Borderline?
Libby
Ssshhh. Don’t tell them they’re doing it wrong or they’ll stop doing it. Give em enough rope as the saying goes…
lotus
Jamie Dupree in AJC:
Yup. ‘Tain’t quite the same as “anti-incumbency.” Against incumbents who turn out against The Establishment (not just the Anthony Weiners and Alan Graysons, but lately also the Nancy Pelosis and Harry Reids), we got no kick.
Mike Kay
@mellowjohn: also not getting enough mention is how KY rejected Mitch McConnell’s and Dick Cheney’s hand picked candidate.
debbie
Apologies if someone else has already mentioned this, but another line from the Republican playbook that I think is being discredited is that the Republican voters are energized, while the Democrats aren’t.
I was just over at TPM looking at the voting results, and here are the vote counts for Kentucky Senator:
Republican: 330,000+
Democrat: 448,000+
And this is in a primary election! Unless I’m missing something, I think Republican hubris is misplaced.
Keith G
@Mike Kay
Good answer.
I would also add a certain tribal awe of authoritarian-like leadership (not always correct, but never in doubt). Democrats have not had that card in their hand since the 1960s.
MoDo may be bat shit crazy at times, but there was something to her “Daddy Issues” essay last year.
Yikes.
debbie
Oops, someone did. Sorry.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@mellowjohn:
Oh, it will get mentioned as much as the Democratic victory in NY-23 and PA-12, which is to say, not much because it doesn’t follow the narrative of an ascendant GOP.
Michael
Best comment ever from one of my business partners, a regular GOPer who isn’t a teabagger, but will always vote GOP (he was a former GOP officeholder):
My answer: “he’s been a competent attorney general, has a mild personality and no flair for the dramatic. Rand Paul, on the other hand, has been spawned of a guy who’s spent decades on the congressional dole while complaining bitterly about government, has longtime associations with neo-nazis and other racists, and hasn’t been in leadership positions with large organizations”.
I swear, conservatism is a mental disorder.
Mike Kay
@debbie: can’t repeat enough. music to my ears.
stuckinred
We’ll see how this plays in the Bluegrass State:
Paul 2.0 is more circumspect: Rather than openly advocate drug decriminalization, Rand favors “a more local approach to drugs … it’s a state issue.” He sells foreign-policy restraint pragmatically, “oppos[ing] reckless ‘nation building’ or burdening our troops by making them the world’s police force.”
gelfling545
Actually I know way too many people who have only the vaguest clue what Nancy Pelosi does so linking to her doesn’t strike me as exactly inspired.
Michael
@stuckinred:
Ron Paul advocates a localized form of dominionist theonomy which is uncheckable by any national authority. Of course, the unspoken part of it is what they’ll do as they consolidate control – which is to exert a heavy hand over the non-dominionist cities. Rand will do the same while paying a bit of lip service to the form of fake libertarianism advocated by his father and so glibly touted at the Koch-bought “Reason”. On the foreign policy front, thats just code that he won’t be voting for “using troops to help out ni55ers on humanitarian missions” – he’ll vote with his caucus for indiscriminate and reckless use of force otherwise.
I’m cracking up over the “victory” in filling the Bunning seat.
The Truffle
@debbie: Am I the only one who thinks that this little “tea party movement” is a. overhyped and b. peaking way too early?
Michael
@gelfling545:
“San Francisco Values” , according to the fever swamp echoes of right wing bloggers and right wing chat board posters. Unfortunately, they’re forming their opinions in an atmosphere where nobody disagrees with them – on the webs.
kay
@The Truffle:
I don’t know. I feel as if it was inevitable, though. The Republican base believe that conservatism failed because government wasn’t conservative enough. They were and are never going to admit the dogma failed. It’s their stock answer to every failure, and economic conservatives have been using it forever: “free markets never fail, it’s just that markets weren’t free enough!” The Tea Party is the Republican base. They weren’t going to become liberals or moderates.
I feel as if the latest incarnation inevitably fails because the truth is, they’re wholly dependent on huge government programs and subsidies. It’s a nice theory, but there’s actual money involved, at some point. What happens when reality intrudes?
Jay C
@gelfling545:
Easy answer: Boogeyman Theory. Easy, cheap, and it gets the rubes’ attention. Set up a strawman caricature of some opposition political figure (in Speaker Pelosi’s case, the “San Francisco Liberal” i.e, America-hating gay hippie atheist soshulist); flog the negative cartoon in the Party’s national mailings, speeches, etc, with as much vehemence as possible, and wait for the votes to roll in.
WereBear: @ #7 got it right: the Two Minutes Hate is what it’s all about to these people. The sad part is how often it works.
kay
@The Truffle:
Ron Paul is a good example. He had no problem directing federal money to his district. None at all. I don’t have any real problem with earmarks:it’s a mechanism to direct money that’s already allocated in the bigger budget. I think it’s a fake, over-hyped issue that stupid people seize on because it’s easy to think about. But I’m not running around basing my entire career on hating Big Government.
Bottom line: he’s taking the checks. Once he cashes them, he wags his finger at us and scolds on spending. His son won’t be any different. How are they going to replace that home-state revenue?
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Libby: You’d think that would be an issue, but they’re stuck on Pisses of Liberals = Best Statergery Evar.
Fortunately, they interpret everything from the lefties, including open mockery, as anger.
Scott de B.
Note that Kentucky is one of those Southern States where the voters never changed their party registration even though they started voting more Republican in general elections.
Those Democratic primary voters are not Obama supporters.
BC
@Scott de B.:
Granted, but Obama is not on the ballot in 2010 either. If these voters come out and vote for Conway over Rand Paul, then Conway will be senator and Obama will have one more in the Senate. Won’t matter if they vote for Obama in 2012, we want their Dem votes for Congress.
jwb
@BC: Actually, we don’t even need them to vote for Obama in 2012. If KY is in play in 2012, the Goopers are toast in any case. It’s more a question of whether those who voted for Mongiardo will vote for Conway and what those who didn’t vote in the primary will do.
El Cid
This thing about running against NANCY! PELOSI! (i.e., NANCY! PELOSI! WENT TO SYRIA! LOGAN ACT!) is that it’s part of that closed loop where it works great on right wing radio and FOXNOOZ and it gets the callers and the audience response and even donations.
And that’s all they give a shit about.
The question is why they’re not shouting just as much about BARNEY FRANK! CRA! ACORN!
debbie
@Scott de B.:
Whether or not they’re Obama supporters or too lazy to switch their registration doesn’t matter. What it shows is that people are putting issues over party. That is exactly what the Republicans do not want.
carpeicthus
Same as the hardcore Republican message: “Blood! S***! Fire!”
aimai
@WereBear:
WereBear nails it. You can’t run ads on good governance, justice for all, or be vocally anti corruption if you plan to get in and then sit on your hands and throw spitballs and block good legislation. At this point the republicans can’t even afford to introduce good legislation for fear the Democrats will take them up on it and vote it into law. All they have, as a party, is destruction and they are finding it hard to even fake an interest in governing to their own voters.
And it can’t be stressed enough that this works well in a closed primary and that anything else simply won’t work well in a closed primary. And that’s all they care about. In the Rand Paul case they tried something else and were beaten like a hollow drum. The mental and moral strength it would take for the Republican leadership (sic) to actively campaign on leading the country forward rather than just preventing any kind of action is simply beyond them.
aimai
Gregory
@The Truffle:
No. SASQ.
Three-nineteen
@El Cid:
Because in a commercial, it’s easy to see that Nancy Pelosi is a woman and it’s hard to see that Barney Frank is teh gay.
thomas
@mellowjohn:
I’ve had the impression that Matthews had no love for Arlen. Maybe I’m wrong but the few times I’ve watched softball and Arlen has been a subject Tweetie had a bit of sneer in his voice.
aimai
@Three-nineteen:
Well, that’s part of it. But its also because the GOP has a bizarre need to personalize and demonize everything–they are such authoritarians that they need to create an anti-authority figure, sometimes out of whole cloth, to attack. I think the Democrats have a much better grasp of how little the public knows, or cares, about the name players in DC. I very seldom get mailers or ads from the Dems that require me to know who the fuck John Boehner is. I’d like to see Obama do more going after the Republicans and the Republican party, but I think he does what he does in exactly the right way by refusing to personalize it and refusing to tie it directly to a single person.
aimai
pk
Do you think republicans would have more success if they ran on their ideas? Should they run on repealing healthcare or social security, lowering taxes further, constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, free guns for toddlers, further deregulation of wallstreet, trashing the environment, getting rid of science based education and replacing it with biblical scientific theory?
What the hell can these morons run on? At the end of the day they have only one idea-destroy government and replace it with corporations.
I would stick with the anti-Pelosi and anti-Obama theme.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@debbie: Couldn’t have said it better myself. debbie. Thanks for saying what’s on my mind.
jwb
@aimai: Yeah, but we’re just a double dip recession away from electing this crazy.
Ed Drone
Whereas the Democrats can use George W. Bush to great effect — Sestak’s campaign proved that!
Ed
Ed Drone
Given the answers here, I sense a great contest idea: Condense the “Tea Party message” to a 140-character Tweet (or is it “Twit?”).
Combining a couple-three of answers already entered in the contest, I’d suggest:
Keep your gummint hands offa my Medicare, ni**er! I NEED those meds!
Ed
jwb
@Ed Drone: Hard to say on this, actually, given that Sestak’s ad was used in a primary whereas running against Pelosi was in a special election.
danimal
Re: Tweety and Specter. Remember, Tweety seriously considered running for PA senate last year (or was it a negotiating ploy?). His grimace probably means “maybe I coulda won that thing…damn.”
Ed Drone
@danimal:
He’d never have succeeded in the Senate — the first time he started to talk over another Senator, they’d take away his washroom key! Senatorial courtesy would do him in, for sure.
Ed
debbie
@pk:
Not only have their ideas been thoroughly discredited (small government, unregulated free markets, etc.), but they make claims for supporting things they’ve never even done! If I hear one more Republican insist he/she is for fiscal responsibility…
The Republican ad campaigns I’ve seen in this past cycle have either been appallingly negative (Lee Fischer in Ohio) or out-and-out lies (Pat Tiberi, also in Ohio). The poster child for all that is wrong with today’s Republican Party is John Boehner (yeah, Ohio too). Until the party separates itself from its current smarmy, shallow marketing-to-dunces strategy, it’ll be nothing more than a collection site for angry miscreants.
aimai
@Ed Drone:
Why is no one awarding Ed Drone the internets for today?
aimai
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Nothing borderline about it. The only thing worse in the right-wing imagination than a Manchurian Nigerian Muslim Socialist in the White House is a powerful, opinionated woman.
JR
It’s not that they think the voters in any given district hate Pelosi. It’s that the activists and donors they want to fire up on a national level to get involved in the race do.
The NRCC, like DCCC, will back any nominee or incumbent with a pulse and a shot at winning (and the pulse is often optional). But those individual campaigns often need to get national activists riled up and donating. So the GOPers will attack national Democrats like Pelosi and Reid, and the Dems will comment on net neutrality and school board stupidity in other states.
Earlier today I threw some dollars to Rory Reid’s campaign for Governor of Nevada, though I’ve never been to the state, because he spoke out against a stupid law in Arizona. I chipped in for Halter, Sestak, Bill Owens, and Manny Trivedi as well. I have no connections to those districts, but they were saying the right things for my national priorities. Well, if I were a Republican activist, I’d probably be more inclined to give to candidates who acted like hateful and obstructionist tools, because that would be more in line with my national agenda.
mellowjohn
aimal…
he’s got my vote.