The Rino's are Circling the Wagons with McCain at the lead all to keep Sarah out (vanity)

[fieldmarshaldj]

Weicker was worse. In his last year in office in 1988, he scored a 4. He was more liberal than Dodd (who got an 8). But still, in the past 5 years, Castle has scored in the 20s with the exception of 2006 when he got a 52. His highest recently was in 2002 when he got a 76 (which likely accounted for his higher overall rating, but we've seen that umpteen times where they score high early on and appallingly low after a time. If he was still doing between 50-80, he'd be slightly more palatable. But 20 ? That's lower than my liberal Democrat Congressman has scored, and I wouldn't vote for him for any office.

[Clintonfatigued]

Good point, I forgot that. Still, it’s probably enough time to groom a more conservative Republican to succeed Castle.

[darkangel82]

4?? Sheesh, you have to try to get that low. There are RINOs, and then there are democrat plants in the party.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Weicker was a bonafide nutjob. He lost in ‘88 because a lot of Republicans were proud to vote against him for Lieberman. Somewhat similar to why Percy lost in IL in ‘84 and Ed Brooke in ‘78 in MA.

[AuH2ORepublican]

CF, read your pings. : )

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2354775/posts?page=172#172

BTW, Castle is 70, and the Senate election is for a term that ends in 2014, so if we can win the House seat we can have the Congressman challenge Castle in the primary in 2014 or else wait until he retires in 2020 (when he’ll be 80).

[Clintonfatigued]

DJ already pointed that out.

[Impy]

The house seat being open makes it perhaps number 2 on the rat target list with the Ex LT Guv John Carney running. Castle is obviously less afraid of Beau.

Still in a good year we have chance to hold (or pickup if you will) that house seat if a good candidate is found. Carney was able to get himself upset in last years gubernatorial primary, he can do it again.

I would vote for Castle in a glorified rat primary over Beau. Being much older, more moderate and not the legacy spawn of Vice Prez Coocoobananas he’s the better of the dems to have in there. Biden Jr. in there for the next 30 years as AuH2 points out is an ugly prospect. We’ll have another crack at the seat sooner if Castle wins.

I’m thrilled I don’t live in DE though (sadly I live in IL, same boat), I’m sure many DE freepers will be voting third party.

At least Mark Kirk will lie and try to come off as conservative while the likes of Castle and Snowe are openly disdainful of the Republican party “I didn’t change the party changed- Snowe” No Lympie the party has never been officially socialist, thanks for playing.

In any case area conservatives should set their sights on that house seat

[Impy]

“Beau Biden might opt instead to go for the easier open House seat,”

There’s a thought. Carney would blow a gasket!

Ultimately I’d put Beau’s odds over Castle at 50/50.

[AuH2ORepublican]

I don't think that Castle thinks that running for the Senate against Beau Biden will be easier than running for reelection to the House—sure, he's polling a few points ahead of Biden, but I would guess that he'd lead Carney by double digits for the House—but Castle probably sees the Senate race as being a bit riskier but yielding a much higher reward if he's successful. After spending his 60s in the House, he wants to spend his 70s in the more exclusive Club of 100 where a RINO from a small state can wield much more power.

Like you (and most FReepers, I suspect), I have no interest in enabling such a liberal weasel to become a Senator, but would gladly step aside and “let the wookie win” if it stops a second three decades of Senator Biden.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I must be psychic. I made mention yesterday that Beau may not run if Castle were to get in, and there is already talk today coming from his camp about his having potential cold feet for the matchup.

From PMSNBC today (First Thoughts Column)

“*** Crossing The Delaware: Republicans got a big shot in the arm yesterday when Republican Congressman Mike Castle announced he would seek Joe Biden’s old senate seat in Delaware. Castle was the ONLY Republican who could seriously put this seat in play and he’s running. Now Democrats are waiting on Biden’s son, Beau, to decide (BTW, he might be having more cold feet than some realize, so we’re hearing). For those keeping track of our Senate rankings (which debuted Monday, Delaware would jump immediately to 4 on our list, displacing Missouri, meaning the top FOUR slots, are now all Democratic-held seats.)”

[AuH2ORepublican]

If Beau Biden doesn’t run for the Senate, I don’t think he’ll run for the House either (unless Carney switches from the House race to the Senate race, which I doubt that he’ll do). Just a hunch.

[BillyBoy]

>> I would vote for Castle in a glorified rat primary over Beau. Being much older, more moderate and not the legacy spawn of Vice Prez Coocoobananas he’s the better of the dems to have in there. Biden Jr. in there for the next 30 years as AuH2 points out is an ugly prospect. We’ll have another crack at the seat sooner if Castle wins. <<

If a Beau Biden vs. Mike Castle race, I'd throw my support to Castle SOLELY as "stop Biden" move to prevent the likelihood of 36 more years of Biden in the Senate if his younger spawn becomes an incumbent. If the younger Biden decides to sit this one out and it's Castle vs. 2nd tier RAT party hack, then screw Castle. Either way we'll have some drab powerless liberal for the next six years. Besides, Castle would probably win anyway in such a scenario.

Unfortunately the only type of viable conservative who could take out Castle in the primary and Biden in November would be another big name old geezer in the party like former Governor Pete DuPont. We don't seem to have any conservative rising stars in Delaware.

Hopefully Castle will only be there for six years and then we can run a real Republican, but you never know, a lot of these Senators tend not to leave office until they're carried out feet first. I wouldn't be surprised if the was still hanging around into his 80s.

>> At least Mark Kirk will lie and try to come off as conservative while the likes of Castle and Snowe are openly disdainful of the Republican party “I didn’t change the party changed- Snowe” No Lympie the party has never been officially socialist, thanks for playing. <<

That's something new for Mark Kirk, he hasn't even pretended to be a Republican for the last 9 years because he hasn't had a primary opponent since 2000. Prior to August 2009, he didn't even pay conservatives lip service except ones that came to his fundraisers. During his 2008 campaign he openly sneered at conservatives as much as Castle and Snowe. Everything that came out of Kirk's mouth sounded like typical moonbat rhetoric, like how he "stood up to President Bush and big oil's radical agenda" and how he's rated "better than Obama by the Sierra Club" blah blah blah. I figure after the Feb. 2010 primary is over, Kirk will be back to insulting conservatives as much as possible and endorsing Obama's pet priorities in order to endear himself to RATs and "independents".

[AuH2ORepublican]

The winner of the DE Senate race will face reelection in4 years, not 6. Even if the Dem nominee is someone other than Beau Biden, it would be tougher for a conservative or moderate-to-conservative Republican to beat him in 2014 if the RAT is running as an incumbent, so we’d be better off with Castle winning than with the RAT winning (even if Castle’s voting record is only marginally better than a liberal Democrat’s).

If Pete du Pont runs against Castle in the GOP primary it would be worthwhile to support du Pont, since he is well known enough that he could beat a prominent Democrat in the general. But an unknown conservative would not stand a chance in a Senate election in DE against a first-tier (or high-second-tier) Democrat such as the one that will likely run even if Biden Jr. sits out the race; we don’t have a Marco Rubio in DE. The only way that an unknown conservative could win the general is if the Dems ran an unknown liberal, and I don’t think that Castle will be as effective at scaring off potential Dem Senate candidates as Crist was in FL.

So I think that, barring the unlikely entry into the Senate race of a solid Republican with a chance of winning the primary and the general, we should ignore the Senate race and let Castle keep the seat away from a youngish Democrat, and concentrate on winning the DE at-large House seat (which won’t be easy, either, due to our dearth of potential good candidates). Only by electing conservative or moderate-to-conservative Republicans to the House will we have the type of candidate that can win a Senate race in DE in the near future.