In addition to yesterday’s post, I would like to draw attention to the next two important primaries for Senate races in the United States. Important for most because: 1) they are races in Democratic states; 2) One is for a seat held by a Democrat; 3) One is for a seat held by a moderate Republican; 4) Moderate Republicans are expected to win these races as establishment candidates.
The first state to look at is Delaware. The state had two Democrats representing it currently. Previously, one of them was Joe Biden. When Biden was elected as Vice President, he had to step down and an interim senator was put in until the next election in 2010 could facilitate a special election to fill the remainder of the term to 2015 (as Biden was also running for reelection when he was running for VP). Biden’s former Chief of Staff Ted Kaufman was put in the seat with the promise (behind the scenes, of course) that he wouldn’t run for reelection. He made the promise, and then announced as such, purely for the fact that the state’s Attorney General Beau Biden – yes, Joe Biden’s son – could walk into it come the election in November.
Delaware is such a small state that it has an at-large Representative in the House (that is, just one House Representative for the whole state). In a smart ‘balancing’ decision, the voters of Delaware have voted in Republican Mike Castle since 1992 – that’s 10 successive and continuous terms. He’s a moderate (to be expected for a Republican from this state) and negotiates on good faith (though, of late, has obviously fallen in line with the rest of the GOP in the House because he wants this Senate seat).
Because he had won state-wide elections in the state before, and because he is known and popular in Delaware, he wasn’t only the frontrunner for the GOP primary but the frontrunner for the special election too, especially when things started to sour for Democrats. Beau Biden, when he saw how the political landscape fell after he returned for a tour of duty in Iraq (and full credit to him for doing that), and he saw that it would be a difficult win against the supposed Republican candidate, said he wouldn’t seek the Senate seat this time around.
Just an aside, he is 41 years old this year. Meaning he will be still younger than 50 in 2015. Expect to see him run for the seat then.
Yet there’s a problem looming for Castle. The Tea Party. After outing Bennett, getting a bunch of their candidates up in various states, and last night getting Murkowsi bumped, they have turned their attention – and financial resources – to Delaware where they hope to prevent Castle from winning the primary and getting their woman, Christine O’Donnell onto the ticket. She is no more than a political commentator and previous sacrificial lamb to Biden’s 2008 campaign. But she has a few aces up her sleeves. First, she is very young (41). Second, she is very attractive. Third, she tows the Tea Party line perfectly. So the Tea Party is about to throws bundles of money at her and will push her as far as they can.
Castle has his age (71 at the moment) working against him in a big way. He will be a junior Senator in a chamber that takes at least 20 years to get any seniority in. Similarly, he’s a moderate is an party that has become anti-bipartisan.
Should she get up, it’s not a strong pick-up for the GOP anymore. Chris Coons – local politician – stands no chance against Castle. But against O’Donnell, who is a Tea Party extremist (like the rest of the pack), he fares much better. Delaware, after all, is a Democratic state. Being a right-of-right Republican won’t play well.
But should O’Donnell get up in both the primary and the special, that’s another Tea Party caucus member to have sway. It goes from 6 to 7, and a lot easy for them to have sway over the party when the already-serving extreme-right Senators join with them.
The fight between Castle and O’Donnell should decide the fate of the race. Castle means the seat is going red. O’Donnell means the seat is going blue.
The other race to look out for is the Senate race in New Hampshire. An extremely moderate state (in terms of Republicans) and, generally, a Democratic state. The previous Senator was Judd Gregg. You might remember him from a few years back. President Obama has tried to appoint him as Secretary of Commerce in a blatant move to prove his bipartisanship to get good faith from the GOP (oh, how young and niave we all were back then …). Initially, Gregg accepted and said he would step down from the Senate. Every Democrat rejoiced because they thought they would get the valuable 60th seat (as Arlen Specter hadn’t switched parties yet) in the Senate. Then he changed his mind (probably because he got a lot of threatening calls for GOP-ers who knew what was in store, as well as not being able to see completely eye-to-eye with the rest of the Obama administration) and said that he would serve out his term but not seek reelection. So people rejoiced that it would be another pick-up for the Democrats in 2010. They couldn’t possibly do such a bad job to not be able to pick up a Senate seat they should have had years ago, right?
Right?
Oh wait …
The Democrats got their second-tier candidate in Representative Paul Hodes (as Governor John Lynch chose not to run). The Republicans, however, got a great boost when the state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said she would run. Without having ever run for a race (she was appointed to AG) in the state, she was still chosen as the favourite to win the general election in November purely because the climate was so bad for Democrats. Everything looked good for the GOP to retain one of their last North-East seats …
… then the Tea Party invited themself to the … party?
Ovide Lamontagne, lawyer in the state (gee, there’s something about lawyers and the Tea Party that goes together …), decided she would challenge Ayotte (moderate) from the right and drag that whole primary into the red. Ayotte was still favourite to win so long as Lamontagne couldn’t gain traction.
But the Tea Party, boosted with confidence over Murkowski over the past two days, has decided to throw their resources at Lamontagne (just like with O’Donnell) in the hopes that they keep a moderate for retaining the seat for the GOP. Yes, they would be prepared to put up a candidate to lose a seat that they already held. See, in Delaware it’s makes a little sense. They have nothing to lose, so you can try the risk shot. You lose, and a Democrat keeps the seat and you keep a moderate Republican out who might vote with the Democrats every now and then as well.
But in New Hampshire? They are acting like they don’t want the party to keep the seat if they can’t put an extremist in there. They would rather lose a seat they previously held simply so that they can keep a moderate out. If a Democrat wins, then so be it. But an evil moderate Republican won’t dare be in the party!
The race is really up in the air, because not much attention has been paid to it to this point. It was assumed Ayotte would win. Similarly, it’s more up in the air because New Hampshire is full of voters who vote their ways simply to buck trends and stir the pot. If they see a chance to put Lamontagne up just to see a great reaction from the media and the opposition, then they will.
So this seat, again, is going to be decided in the GOP primary. If Ayotte gets in, the Republicans retain. If Lamontagne gets up, it’s a serious chance for the Democrats to pick up a seat and offset one of their losses.
If Lamontagne gets up though, it makes a caucus of 8 for the Tea Party outright. But there’s much more troubling prospects for what message this might send throughout the area.
Scott Brown – the Republican who won Ted Kennedy’s seat in 2009 – got into his seat because of mild backing from the Tea Party. The Tea Party was young and youthful at the time (some might even say smart too) and wanted to take the magic and important 60th seat away from the Democrats by any means. Even if that meant backing a moderate in Scott Brown. So they backed him and they won. A win by Lamontagne would say that a Tea Party candidate can get up in a blue, North East state. And when Scott Brown sees a caucus forming, there’s a chance he might join with it to boost his reelection credentials with his supposed ‘base’ in Massachusetts.
That’s the wrong move, but it’s not the worst move. And if he does so, that takes it to a caucus of 9.
Then the currently serving far-right Senators start looking at ways to boost their credentials. Jim DeMint is one who would join with that caucus. Orrin Hatch is watching his fellow Senator from Utah get bumped for a further-right candidate, so he will want to shore up his right flank …
You start getting some serious numbers when you look at the people who could join. 10, 12. And then where does it stop? The Republican Party could quite easily turn into the Tea Party simply by a defacto movement in Senate.The Tea Party would go from being a fringe element within (and without, in a way) the party to being the core constituency. Good for the Democrats’ election prospects in the long run, but awful for the GOP (and the United States, in a sense).
Worst of all, people would actually have to listen to these loons.
Thomas.
