Posted on 11/03/2010 7:06:56 PM PDT by Qbert
Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate.
With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states.
Movement conservatives pointed the finger right back at the establishment, accusing the National Republican Senatorial Committee of squandering millions on a California race that wasn’t close at the expense of offering additional aid in places like Colorado, Nevada and Washington state, where Democratic Sen. Patty Murray holds a narrow lead as the votes continue to be counted.
The back-and-forth following an otherwise triumphant election amounted to a significant ratcheting up of the internecine battle that has been taking place within the GOP for the past year.
“Candidates matter,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “It was a good night for Republicans but it could have been a better one. We left some on the table.”
Referring to the debate within the right about whether the party was better off losing the Delaware seat than winning with a moderate Republican like Rep. Mike Castle, who lost the GOP primary to Christine O’Donnell, Graham was even more blunt.
“If you think what happened in Delaware is ‘a win’ for the Republican Party then we don’t have a snowball’s chance to win the White House,” he said. “If you think Delaware was a wake-up call for Republicans than we have shot at doing well for a long time.”
Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott put it plainly: “We did not nominate our strongest candidates.”
Had Republicans run Castle in Delaware and establishment favorites Sue Lowden in Nevada and Jane Norton in Colorado, Lott said, Tuesday would have turned out different.
“With those three we would have won and been sitting at 50 [senators],” he observed.
Another high-profile senator went even further, placing the blame for the Senate GOP’s failure squarely at the feet of Graham’s South Carolina colleague, DeMint.
This Republican senator said that the tea party was the “big winner” by helping bring enormous energy behind GOP candidates Tuesday, but he said that “Sen. DeMint was the big loser.”
“It’s like you’re on the five-yard line ready to score and the quarterback calls the play and some member of your team tackles one of your members and keeps you from scoring,” the senator said. “We came tantalizingly close to a majority.”
“I’m completely mystified by it,” the senator said of DeMint’s tactics.
The senator credited House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner for keeping House Republicans unified behind a common purpose but he said that DeMint took a selfish path that hurt the party’s common cause.
“In the Senate, we had one senator, with almost no following within the caucus, engaged in DeMint-style tactics and kept us from realizing our potential,” the senator said.
The South Carolina conservative endorsed O’Donnell and Buck in the primary but only got behind Angle after she won the nomination. All told, he raised over $7 million for GOP candidates, more than any other senator.
DeMint aides declined to make the senator available for an interview, but depicted Republican leaders as accommodationists while touting the senators who won that they endorsed.
“We’re very proud of the conservative leaders who won their races yesterday,” said Matt Hoskins, a DeMint aide. “Many of these candidates were initially opposed by the Washington establishment yet they prevailed because they had the courage to stand up for conservative principles. At least five new Republicans will be in the Senate next year who will hold Washington accountable by standing up to the big spenders in both political parties.”
DeMint got behind newly-elected GOP senators Pat Toomey (Penn.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Ron Johnson (Wisc.) in primaries even as party officials had varying degrees of skepticism about their general election prospects.
Sources close to DeMint also sought to rebut the criticism they’re taking for their role in pushing conservative candidates by pinning the blame instead on the NRSC’s spending decisions.
“If the establishment is doing finger-pointing this morning it’s because their $8 million gamble in California didn’t pay off,” jabbed a source close to DeMint. “That money could have been used in Colorado, Nevada, Washington and Alaska where the races were much looser and much more winnable. That was a huge fumble.”
Republican Carly Fiorina lost by about 10 percentage points to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in California.
NRSC Chairman John Cornyn, while declining to publicly criticize DeMint, defended the decision to spend money in the Golden State, saying she was the best Republican candidate the party could have fielded in a good year for the GOP. “But in deep-blue California that wasn’t quite enough,” Cornyn said on a conference call with reporters, noting that Democrats also spent considerable sums trying to snatch such long-shots as Missouri and Kentucky from Republicans.
As for Colorado, Cornyn came prepared, noting that the committee had spent $6.2 million there. In the case of Nevada, he pointed out that Angle raised record sums for her own bid. An NRSC official noted that the third-party group American Crossroads put in considerable sums into both states.
DeMint’s actions have enraged many Republican senators, aides and consultants, many of whom were exchanging cutting emails about him late Tuesday and early Wednesday as it became clear the party would fall short in the Senate.
“I’m glad Jim DeMint is serving as the loyal opposition within our party,” quipped Julie Wadler, a GOP fundraiser and strategist, capturing the contempt held by many Beltway Republicans for the South Carolinian.
But the blame over who lost the Senate isn’t just taking place within Washington. It’s now the turf on which a more fundamental debate within the conservative movement is taking place. It’s a familiar purity vs. pragmatism battle that has been raging since the GOP lost its majority status in the Senate.
Rush Limbaugh, taking issue with a statement Karl Rove made Tuesday night about the “lesson” learned in nominating O’Donnell, argued that both Angle and O’Donnell lost because they were abandoned by party elites.
“Christine O'Donnell could have won were it not for all the backbiting after her primary victory,” Limbaugh said on his radio show Wednesday. “Had the party gotten behind her, had [RNC Chairman Michael] Steele had some on-the-ground money for Nevada, who knows how that might have turned out. We didn't have any money on the ground in Nevada.”
Both O’Donnell and Angle actually raised significant sums of money and the latter got millions of dollars in assistance from third-party conservative groups, including cash that went to voter turnout efforts.
Mike Duncan, the former RNC Chairman who heads American Crossroads, noted that his well-funded organization spent millions on Angle, Paul and Buck.
But, citing his fellow Kentuckian’s triumph, Duncan said: “Obviously some candidates are more skilled than other candidates.”
Graham said the problem with such candidates was not that they didn’t get enough financial assistance, but that they ran campaigns outside the mainstream of states that favor candidates closer to the political middle.
“Hard-right politicians in purple states didn’t turn out very well,” he said. “Candidates who embraced center-right politics in purple states did very well.
Crowing about the large group of more mainline Republicans coming into the Senate such as Ohio’s Rob Portman and Illinois’s Mark Kirk, Graham said: “The solving-the-problem crowd in the Senate grew on Tuesday.”
Other Senate Republicans who bridge the two wings of the party sought to tamp down the anger Wednesday.
“We didn’t have the “A” candidates for this election, but how many election cycles do you have that?” asked Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.). “You got to play the hand you’re dealt.”
Still, even with the election over now, there is little doubt that the fight within the party will continue. Now joined by the likes of Lee and Paul, DeMint is likely to be emboldened to continue his guerilla tactics.
He wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday that read like a combative welcome manual to new GOP senators: “Tea party Republicans were elected to go to Washington and save the country—not be co-opted by the club. So put on your boxing gloves. The fight begins today.”
Oh yeah, I am smiling too.
At this point, I “like” Rand Paul.
We really do need to focus on removing Lindsey Grahmn from his Senate Seat.
It’s pretty clear the party “pragmatists” didn’t like the conservative nominees, and I don’t doubt there’s some anger at DeMint. However, I really don’t care what the centrists think. When push came to shove, THEY did not enthusiastically back our choices, so THEY have absolutely no right to talk about party unity. Frankly, I’m STILL glad Mike Castle went down in flames! That fact alone makes O’Donnell’s loss more bearable.
We tried the “pragmatic” way before, and the moderates sold us out—even when we had the majority. Say what you will about the Democrats, but at least they actually pushed their agenda forward. Our team shafted us when they had the chance. Yeah, some of us actually want smaller government. A pox on centrist sellouts! Compromise does NOT mean giving the Democrats 80% of what they want.
“had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states”
FU, elitist RINO scum.
Castle's circus-like 75% liberal voting record brought down his chances in the primary.
I don’t really know what to think about Lindsey. He’s an a##H for sure. I’d love to slap him right across his face. And about 1,000 times.
“Compromise does NOT mean giving the Democrats 80% of what they want.”
Good points. The only compromise I want to see is the left driven completely from public life.
I can see it now. The House will pass legislation then idiots like Graham and McCain will form a new “gang of 10” to undo everything. They just don’t get it and never will.
It’s a n00b. Don’t expect much.
LLS
pallis: “My advice for the establishment is to get behind the people that gave you the other wins, or get out of the way.”
Sound advice, and if they refuse the former, we’ll do our best to help them achieve the latter (whether they like it or not).
It seems that anyone who posts something from Politico should ask themselves if they really want to make their fellow Freepers ill.
Politico is just trying to deflect attention from the fact the liberals got clobbered yesterday in races in the states and at the fed level.
Hallelujah.
The RINOS need to get on board. When Independents are more likely to vote for your candidate than registered republicans, RINOS are 100 percent responsible for not getting behind conservative candidates.
And, frankly, if Mitch McConnell is upset because he isn't Majority Leader, it's because he didn't have the fortitude, the guts and, more frankly, the balls to make it happen.
As long as we look at the crap that the media and establishment Republicans hit O’Donnell with and blame O’Donnell, we can expect the whole place to stink just as bad as Washington DC has always stunk. Blame the victim, not the rapist.
Well, I have some words for the sexist rapists within our party: your time is limited. Justice will be coming, and it’s not going to look pretty for you. The corrupt lies you’ve engaged in behind the scenes will be shouted from the mountaintops and you will not be able to hide.
You can think a person is stupid or not the best candidate, but if you stand by and watch an innocent person slandered and their rights taken away, and go along with it because you think the person is stupid, then you are worse than stupid: you are evil. Right now if I had to choose between a smart, evil person and an innocent but stupid one, I would take the innocent one any day. The worst they could be is ineffective. The smart but evil ones are deadly, and they’ve been killing this country long enough.
Lord, have mercy on this nation. Bring us to repentance and to deal in truth. Raise up leaders who are wise as serpents but innocent as doves, and shut the mouths of the roaring lions who seek only their own enrichment, power, or reputation. Regardless of party. Bring to repentance anybody who can be persuaded to the truth, and bring sure and swift justice to the others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
They just don’t get it? ... Are you serious? Don’t give the scum the benefit of the doubt. You should be able to see whom they work for now, and it isn’t the people who elected them. Graham is a three dollar whore and the dems have somehting so disgraceful on him that he prostitutes himself to them at every crucial turn, then truns aropund and mouths anger at dems! MaCain is a stealth progressive who uses his position to neuter opposition tot he democrats he loves. His lips are probably still fastened to Ted Kennedy’s rotting carcass!
Graham needs to be primaried.
The Carolinas are experiencing incredible culture shifts.
Also, for 24/7 attacks by the national media, O’Donnell did quite well grabbing 40% of the vote. As did Angle who only lost by 5% and did not have the illegal cooperation of Harrahs unions driving out voter turnout.
If they keep attacking women candidates, you will see Hillary win the Presidency.
Of course, my comment was directed at the author of the column, not the poster here on FR.
Oh, we could have had a 50-50 Senate. What fun. We had that ten years ago and it sucked. We had the VP on our side and it still sucked.
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