Republican death spiral watch

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Scene: a smoke filled back-room at Republican National Headquarters.
Republican Strategist 1: How will we take back the Senate in 2010? The Democrats are very close to getting a filibuster proof majority!

Republican Strategist 2: I know! We'll take a relatively popular, almost-impossible-to-unseat incumbent, Arlen Specter (R-PA), and have him knocked off in a primary by Club For Growth right-winger Pat Toomey! This way, we'll surrender the advantage of popular incumbency and put forward an unknown wingnut in a state that voted for Obama over McCain by 10 points!

Other Republicans: Sounds like a fantastic idea!
Yglesias:
Specter would be basically unbeatable. Toomey, by contrast, could win depending on whether or not a strong candidate emerges against him. But you wouldn’t really bet on it. Pennsylvania’s not the bluest state in the nation, but there’s little evidence that an orthodox conservative can beat an orthodox progressive in a statewide race. Obama beat McCain by ten points, Kerry beat Bush by two and a half, Gote beat Bush by four, Clinton beat Dole by ten, and Clinton beat Bush by nine. Ed Rendell’s been elected governor twice, and his Republican predecessor was, like Specter, a moderate.

This is all reminiscent of the 2008 Virginia Senate race, which I think never got enough attention. You had a longstanding conservative state that had been trending blue. And you had a very strong Democratic candidate in Mark Warner. And you had one and only one possible Republican nominee who would have stood a chance to beat Warner in moderate Representative Tom Davis. But not only did the Virginia GOP decline to nominate Davis, they actually changed the rules by which the nominee is picked to stack the deck against Davis. The result was a totally noncompetitive senate race. The Republicans just fronted the Democrats a Republican-held Senate seat. And Davis decided to retire, thus leaving his House seat open to be nabbed by a Democrat as well. It was staggeringly self-defeating move. And now they’re set to do it again in Pennsylvania

It seems a bit like overconfidence, but how could a movement that’s clearly on the ropes be feeling overconfident.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well, interesting where that went!
9:39 PM, April 28, 2009
Zachary Drake said…
Yeah. Great strategic thinking on the part of the Republicans, there. They really forced Specter into this (if Specter's primary goal is his personal political survival, which is a pretty good default assumption for politicians.)
11:47 PM, April 28, 2009
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