Posted on 05/14/2008 6:43:50 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Special election races for Congress have arguable value as bellwethers for upcoming general elections. Mostly these races get decided on local issues rather than national themes, as in Louisiana, where the Republicans ran a lousy candidate, considered the only person who could have lost the seat. They do demonstrate the strength of national party efforts, though, and when one party loses three special elections in districts previously thought safe, that sends a message — and rightly has Republicans worried about their chances in November:
A Democrat won the race for a GOP-held congressional seat in northern Mississippi yesterday, leaving the once-dominant House Republicans reeling from their third special-election defeat of the spring.
Travis Childers, a conservative Democrat who serves as Prentiss County chancery clerk, defeated Southaven Mayor Greg Davis by 54 percent to 46 percent in the race to represent Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District, which both parties considered a potential bellwether for the fall elections.
Democrats said the results prove that they are poised for another round of big gains in the November general elections, and they attacked the Republican strategy of tying Democrats to Sen. Barack Obama, the front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination, saying it had failed for a second time in 10 days in the Deep South. Democrat Don Cazayoux won the special election for a GOP-held House seat in Louisiana on May 3. …
The Childers victory was the latest setback suffered by Republicans, who began the string of defeats in special elections when Democrat Bill Foster claimed the seat of former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in March.
President Bush won Mississippi’s 1st District by 25 percentage points four years ago, and Roger Wicker (R) won reelection with 66 percent of the vote in 2006. Wicker was appointed earlier this year to the Senate seat vacated by Trent Lott, who quit just one year into his six-year term to become a corporate lobbyist.
Why the panic? Even heavily Republican districts have given the GOP a slap in the face. Not even attempts to tie Democratic candidates to Barack Obama — unconvincing attempts at that — brought Republicans to the polls for the special elections. Democrats out-motivated, out-organized, and out-performed Republicans. And with a huge gap in fundraising between the DCCC and the NRCC, that appears to presage the general election in many more districts.
The lack of motivation comes from a disgust with a Republican Party that still hasn’t learned why it lost the majority in 2006. They lost those mid-term elections not because voters stopped supporting conservative principles, but because the House GOP stopped supporting conservative principles. Look at who won these special elections; they’re all Blue Dog Democrats, running in support of conservative themes such as gun rights. Now look at the Republicans who last held those seats, such as Hastert and Wicker — Republicans who spent other people’s money on waste and personal ambition.
Did the House GOP caucus take a hard line on pork-barrel spending or adopt policies to cut federal spending? No. Republican voters and conservative pundits begged the House and Senate caucuses to make dramatic breaks with the previous six years and adopt real conservative policies of fiscal responsibility and federalism. What did they do? They offered to stop earmarking only if Democrats followed suit, a deal everyone knew would never take place. Instead of appointing one single anti-pork activist to the House Appropriations Committee in Jeff Flake, they appointed Joe Bonner, a good Congressman but a well-known earmarker, and mostly because Flake’s anti-pork crusade irritates his colleagues.
John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, issued this warning:
The results in MS-01 should serve as a wake-up call to Republican candidates nationwide. As I’ve said before, this is a change election, and if we want Americans to vote for us we have to convince them that we can fix Washington. Our presidential nominee, Senator McCain, is an agent of change; candidates who hope to succeed must show that they’re willing and able to join McCain in a leading movement for reform. We need to stop wasteful Washington spending, fight and win the war on terror, and stop the largest tax increase in history. That is truly the change the American people deserve — and that is a message on which we can succeed.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have to take action to build credibility as reformers. Every step of the way between 2006 and now, they have chosen as a group to go in the opposite direction. The failure to appoint one single reformer to the lion’s den of wasteful spending shows that the GOP never learned its lesson from 2006, and now will suffer even greater consequences in 2008.
Get ready for the deluge. The next Republican leadership group had better learn the lesson of 2008 a lot more quickly than two years after the fact.
Update: It was Joe Bonner who got appointed to Appropriations and is an earmarker. Jack Kingston was pushing Flake for the job. My apologies to Rep. Kingston.
It’s almost as if McCain and the GOP are intentionally trying to alienate us conservatives, and give the election to the Dems.
And I’m darn close to writing McCain off.
The GOPers have heard the conservatives loud and clear.
They’ve heard that we’re going to stay home, and Johnny McCain is swimming to the last raft floating with the rats.
They know they can’t count on them to step out on a limb, like opposingGW or whatever, so they slither into the shade.
We taught the GOP a lesson. We taught them to shun conservatism.
After yesterday's speech I'm done with McCain. I won;'t vote for him but I will show up and vote for Thelma Drake and I hope Jim Gilmore. God help us.
Ah. Of course. It's all our fault, teaching them to "shun conservatism" by not rewarding them with our ballots and $$$ support simply because they continually insist upon shunning conservatism.
"This must be the Ike Turner Theory of Electoral Loyalty.
Not only are they wearing blinders, they are running scared and in the wrong direction. They no longer are guided by the principles they initially ran on. The only thing that matters now is holding on to their seats of power. The irony is that their very actions are what will cause them to lose those jobs.
Good luck on getting that done in the next 6 months.
No. We won't have diddly squat. They are taking the party with THEM....it is not coming back to Goldwater-land. Got it?
Pols don't think they can win with conservatives, and they think they were proven right in 2006, so it doesn't matter if it's all convoluted or what...we as conservatives have NOTHING left because we let them take the infrastructure with them.
And....a bunch of pajama-media sitting around posting "I told you so" is not going to pay for tv and canvassing and stuff that's required to campaign.
Buckley warned about a loss sending conservatism adrift. God rest him in his happier place.
There needs to be a house cleaning. All Republican leaders must be thrown out. We need to start fresh with guys like the ones who stood by us on the amnesty debacle - DeMint and Coburn were two of them, weren't they?
The party needs to be rid of the RINOS. So long as RINOS control it, they can count on results like what happened in Mississippi. They are facing a disgusted, dispirited, angry base and without them, the party is over.
Of course not. Any movement, however, certainly may be killed by actions taken (or not taken) in Washington... as the current blighted crop of "Republicans" in Congress amply demonstrates.
Oh yeah, and then they top it off by putting a RINO like McCain on the Presidential ticket. This party is clueless.
Nope. You're not only thunderingly, crashingly wrong... but: you'll live to see just how wrong, assuming no undue floods or lightning storms in your immediate area. ;) Got it?
I agree with your post 100%. That wrong direction is leading them right over the cliff.
That's all you need to say. Here's two truisms: Corporations never actually pay taxes, and career politicians never get hurt.
The scurry to the left is because they know there's loyal broken-glass moderates who'll vote for change every time. Conservatives continue to prove that they can't be counted on. Ask Rick Santorum.
If the Republicans have to run candidates that hate America and want to destroy the constitution to be popular like the rats, then to hell with it. I will go down with my boots on and fight for freedom with my last breath.
I'm just observing what low-down politicians are doing. It's pretty easy to see.
I think the conservative inactivism is what allowed mcpain to get to where he is now, and why Fred and Hunter never had a chance....the rest of the party knew that we don't havve any pull.
The GOP is insane.
Yep, and I have no intention of going down with them. There will be other elections, we will take our party back.
Ditto. Well said.
God willing they will rue the day for going left. I can see a time not too far from now where the dems will have a super majority in both houses and have a president in the WH to boot.
career politicians never get hurt.
I'm a big believer in term limits. That problem would be on the way to being solved. They would be out of there before cronyism and one hand washes the other could take root.
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