Primary election day . . .

[terrier]

Boy, is the conservative punditocracy pissed at my home state today. And if you listen to Boston "sports" talk radio, Dennis and Callahan sounded like we had just sent bin Laden to the Senate. Callahan said he would rather give the Democrats the House and Senate now than let Chafee ever set foot in there again.
Poor Gerry needs a hand from Ann Coulter...literally.
The funny thing is, if the GOP was in a better position nationally and was thinking about adding seats instead of just fighting to keep a majority, the NRSC would've backed Laffey.
I'm voting for Linc, but my money would be on Sheldon Whitehouse in November - there's just too much bitterness among Laffey backers, and only a united GOP can win a statewide race here.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Boy, is the conservative punditocracy pissed at my home state today. And if you listen to Boston "sports" talk radio, Dennis and Callahan sounded like we had just sent bin Laden to the Senate. Callahan said he would rather give the Democrats the House and Senate now than let Chafee ever set foot in there again.
Poor Gerry needs a hand from Ann Coulter...literally.
The funny thing is, if the GOP was in a better position nationally and was thinking about adding seats instead of just fighting to keep a majority, the NRSC would've backed Laffey.
I'm voting for Linc, but my money would be on Sheldon Whitehouse in November - there's just too much bitterness among Laffey backers, and only a united GOP can win a statewide race here.

Are you serious? If that dunce is willing to make that trade -- Linc for a Democratic Congress -- I'm all for it. Let's do it now.
It will be interesting to see if Whitehouse can make some hay out of tying Chaffee to all that help he got from Rove and the current R power brokers.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Here are some differences between Chafee and Lieberman:

--Chaffee has the complete support of the party's establishment. The NRSC has said they will disavow Laffey if he wins. This is in direct contrast to Schumer, et al. vowing to support the winner of the primary, which only encouraged Dems to vote for Lamont.

--The outside influences (Club for Growth, etc.) in the GOP primary have a clear agenda (electing conservatives that they like) and supporting Laffey over Chafee fits with that agenda. On the other hand, Daily Kos has said that his agenda is putting more Democrats into power and into office. It's a nakedly partisan agenda. It's his right to do so. Lord knows there are GOP groups with the same agenda. But pouring money and resources into toppling Lieberman only takes away resources from other Senate races (NJ, TN, PA, MT, MN, OH, MO, etc.) where those resources could be the difference between winning and losing. If your only goal is to take back the Senate for the Dems, how does the Lieberman/Lamont sideshow help that cause?

All nonsense, Your Holiness.
The Club For Growth is as interested in electing Republicans as Kos is in electing Democrats. (When either one endorses across the aisle, give me a call.) CFG is interesting in electing ITS KIND of Republicans, which is a distinction without a difference.
The Democratic establishment supported Lieberman all through the primary campaign. He lost. Now it supports the candidate who won the Democratic primary. Color me shocked.
There is no zero-sum game in political fundraising. There's no salary cap. If you want to worry about people sucking up the available money, then you want to look at people like Hillary, who has eight or 10 million in the bank for an election that she is going to win by about 45 percentage points.

To call what the CFG does a distinction without difference is plainly wrong. CFG only wants what it considers pro-business/anti-tax conservatives, a group that certainly does not include Linc Chafee. They are completely unconcerned about the overall strength of the party and have shown a strong streak to take down "more electable" moderate candidates that the party favors. Kos wants Democrats in power, period. End of story. If he was truly concerned with ideological purity, he would be a committed Feingold for President backer, instead of flirting with supporting Mark Warner. How intraparty battles help his cause, I don't know.

You might be "shocked" by the idea that the Dems would support their nominee, but Rove/Dole/the RNC made no bones about it: it was Linc Chafee or bust. If Laffey had won, they would have completely pulled their support from RI. So unlike the Dems, the party was in no way complicit with the challenge.

In theory, you are correct...there is no salary cap. But every dollar that goes toward is also a dollar that could be used to put Claire McCaskill, Harold Ford and Bob Menendez over the top. Where that dollar is spent is a zero sum game.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Here are some differences between Chafee and Lieberman:

--Chaffee has the complete support of the party's establishment. The NRSC has said they will disavow Laffey if he wins. This is in direct contrast to Schumer, et al. vowing to support the winner of the primary, which only encouraged Dems to vote for Lamont.

--The outside influences (Club for Growth, etc.) in the GOP primary have a clear agenda (electing conservatives that they like) and supporting Laffey over Chafee fits with that agenda. On the other hand, Daily Kos has said that his agenda is putting more Democrats into power and into office. It's a nakedly partisan agenda. It's his right to do so. Lord knows there are GOP groups with the same agenda. But pouring money and resources into toppling Lieberman only takes away resources from other Senate races (NJ, TN, PA, MT, MN, OH, MO, etc.) where those resources could be the difference between winning and losing. If your only goal is to take back the Senate for the Dems, how does the Lieberman/Lamont sideshow help that cause?

All nonsense, Your Holiness.
The Club For Growth is as interested in electing Republicans as Kos is in electing Democrats. (When either one endorses across the aisle, give me a call.) CFG is interesting in electing ITS KIND of Republicans, which is a distinction without a difference.
The Democratic establishment supported Lieberman all through the primary campaign. He lost. Now it supports the candidate who won the Democratic primary. Color me shocked.
There is no zero-sum game in political fundraising. There's no salary cap. If you want to worry about people sucking up the available money, then you want to look at people like Hillary, who has eight or 10 million in the bank for an election that she is going to win by about 45 percentage points.

To call what the CFG does a distinction without difference is plainly wrong. CFG only wants what it considers pro-business/anti-tax conservatives, a group that certainly does not include Linc Chafee. They are completely unconcerned about the overall strength of the party and have shown a strong streak to take down "more electable" moderate candidates that the party favors. Kos wants Democrats in power, period. End of story. If he was truly concerned with ideological purity, he would be a committed Feingold for President backer, instead of flirting with supporting Mark Warner. How intraparty battles help his cause, I don't know.

You might be "shocked" by the idea that the Dems would support their nominee, but Rove/Dole/the RNC made no bones about it: it was Linc Chafee or bust. If Laffey had won, they would have completely pulled their support from RI. So unlike the Dems, the party was in no way complicit with the challenge.

In theory, you are correct...there is no salary cap. But every dollar that goes toward is also a dollar that could be used to put Claire McCaskill, Harold Ford and Bob Menendez over the top. Where that dollar is spent is a zero sum game.

Repeating the same arguments does not make them correct.
The RNC would have lined up with Laffey. They'd have held their nose, but they would have done it. To push the Lieberman analogy fully over the fliff, Chaffee would not have run as an "Independent Republican" if he'd have lost, and there would have been no Republican senators lining up with him in that quest, and no Democratic money coming in to support Linc's principled stand. This is not the case in Connecticut.
CFG wants to push the Republican party to the right. In that interest, it lines up regularly against Republican moderates, but it wants to elect Republicans no less than Kos does Democrats. It just does so less regularly. For the purposes of your Lieberman argument, this is indeed a distinction without a difference.
Campaign money is not a zero-sum game. Period. Lamont is not taking a nickel away from Ford or McCaskill that they cannot raise themselves elsewhere.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Here are some differences between Chafee and Lieberman:

--Chaffee has the complete support of the party's establishment. The NRSC has said they will disavow Laffey if he wins. This is in direct contrast to Schumer, et al. vowing to support the winner of the primary, which only encouraged Dems to vote for Lamont.

--The outside influences (Club for Growth, etc.) in the GOP primary have a clear agenda (electing conservatives that they like) and supporting Laffey over Chafee fits with that agenda. On the other hand, Daily Kos has said that his agenda is putting more Democrats into power and into office. It's a nakedly partisan agenda. It's his right to do so. Lord knows there are GOP groups with the same agenda. But pouring money and resources into toppling Lieberman only takes away resources from other Senate races (NJ, TN, PA, MT, MN, OH, MO, etc.) where those resources could be the difference between winning and losing. If your only goal is to take back the Senate for the Dems, how does the Lieberman/Lamont sideshow help that cause?

All nonsense, Your Holiness.
The Club For Growth is as interested in electing Republicans as Kos is in electing Democrats. (When either one endorses across the aisle, give me a call.) CFG is interesting in electing ITS KIND of Republicans, which is a distinction without a difference.
The Democratic establishment supported Lieberman all through the primary campaign. He lost. Now it supports the candidate who won the Democratic primary. Color me shocked.
There is no zero-sum game in political fundraising. There's no salary cap. If you want to worry about people sucking up the available money, then you want to look at people like Hillary, who has eight or 10 million in the bank for an election that she is going to win by about 45 percentage points.

To call what the CFG does a distinction without difference is plainly wrong. CFG only wants what it considers pro-business/anti-tax conservatives, a group that certainly does not include Linc Chafee. They are completely unconcerned about the overall strength of the party and have shown a strong streak to take down "more electable" moderate candidates that the party favors. Kos wants Democrats in power, period. End of story. If he was truly concerned with ideological purity, he would be a committed Feingold for President backer, instead of flirting with supporting Mark Warner. How intraparty battles help his cause, I don't know.

You might be "shocked" by the idea that the Dems would support their nominee, but Rove/Dole/the RNC made no bones about it: it was Linc Chafee or bust. If Laffey had won, they would have completely pulled their support from RI. So unlike the Dems, the party was in no way complicit with the challenge.

In theory, you are correct...there is no salary cap. But every dollar that goes toward is also a dollar that could be used to put Claire McCaskill, Harold Ford and Bob Menendez over the top. Where that dollar is spent is a zero sum game.

Repeating the same arguments does not make them correct.
The RNC would have lined up with Laffey. They'd have held their nose, but they would have done it. To push the Lieberman analogy fully over the fliff, Chaffee would not have run as an "Independent Republican" if he'd have lost, and there would have been no Republican senators lining up with him in that quest, and no Democratic money coming in to support Linc's principled stand. This is not the case in Connecticut.
CFG wants to push the Republican party to the right. In that interest, it lines up regularly against Republican moderates, but it wants to elect Republicans no less than Kos does Democrats. It just does so less regularly. For the purposes of your Lieberman argument, this is indeed a distinction without a difference.
Campaign money is not a zero-sum game. Period. Lamont is not taking a nickel away from Ford or McCaskill that they cannot raise themselves elsewhere.

Find me one quote, article, etc. to support your contention that the party would have supported Laffey. They all but called Laffey a child-molesting murderer in their ads in support of Chaffee and publicly disavowed Laffey. How they would have been able to turn around and support him is beyond me.

The reason the CFG supports Republicans is that it would be impossible to hold views the CFG likes and be a Democrat. In theory, could it happen? Sure. In reality, it won't. Kos had no ideological tests, only partisan ones.

But forcing Ford/McCaskill to spend time raising those funds takes away from time that could be spent campaigning, etc. And in a close race, a couple hundred thousand dollars can be the difference between winning and losing.

 

[Gold]

Pope - your takes on politics are usually pretty good, but I have to disagree with you on one point. I don't think that pouring money into Connecticut would hurt Democratic chances by definition because it would take money away from Democratic Senate candidates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Montana, etc. For what you are saying to be right (at least in my opinion), the amount the Democrats would spend would have to reduce the amount the Republicans will spend. In the contested races, while neither party would have an unlimited amount to spend, each party should have enough resources to wage a decent campaign. So long as you have enough money, it's a question of how well you spend it. There are examples of California multimillionaires (Al Chechi who ran for governor in the Democratic primary and Michael Huffington who ran for Senate as a Republican) who easily outspent their opponents and didn't win.

 

[Gold]

Had Lafferty won the primary, I think the RNC and the White House would have supported him in name. Candidates and their supporters say nasty things about each other during a primary and then frequently come together in the general election - come to the aid of the party sort of thing.

The reason they might not have supported Lafferty financially is because the Republican leaders might look at that like they were throwing money away. Use the Pennsylvania primary as an example. The White House would support Spector because he would be with them, say, 60 percent of the time. A Democratic senator from Pennsylvania might be with them 20 percent of the time.

But if Toomey defeated Spector in the primary, you can bet the Republican leaders would have done a heckuva lot to get Toomey elected. It's whatever you can do to put themselves in the best position.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Pope - your takes on politics are usually pretty good, but I have to disagree with you on one point. I don't think that pouring money into Connecticut would hurt Democratic chances by definition because it would take money away from Democratic Senate candidates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Montana, etc. For what you are saying to be right (at least in my opinion), the amount the Democrats would spend would have to reduce the amount the Republicans will spend. In the contested races, while neither party would have an unlimited amount to spend, each party should have enough resources to wage a decent campaign. So long as you have enough money, it's a question of how well you spend it. There are examples of California multimillionaires (Al Chechi who ran for governor in the Democratic primary and Michael Huffington who ran for Senate as a Republican) who easily outspent their opponents and didn't win.

I'm not quite sure what your argument is. I generally agree that money isn't the end-all-be-all, it can make the difference in an incredibly close race. For example, the RSCC is spending no money in the CT Senate race, which frees up money to be spent in other races, especially for negative ad campaigns. The DSCC is spending money trying to defeat Lieberman, which is money that isn't being spent in those races. Will that difference defeat a Ted Kennedy? Hell no. But in a 50/50 race like Talent/McCaskill, it just might be enough.

Had Laffey won, the RNC would have declared the race unwinnable and pulled all of their money out of RI.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Any Marylanders want to chime in on that Senate race? I'm watching, interested, from a great distance.

 

[Gold]

Dirk: Had Lieberman won the Democratic primary, the Republicans wouldn't have spent any money in the Nutmeg State. Indeed, a lot of the money Lieberman raises will probably come from contributors who give to the GOP.

My point was that however the Dems spend their money probably doesn't affect how the GOP will spend their money. Both parties, I would think, would give first priority to spending their money primarily to protect endangered incumbents because it's easier to raise $$ for incumbents.

Also, there are always unique local factors. Burns in Montana, despite the questions raised by his connections with Abramoff, probably won't have problems raising money but in a low population state like Montana, you probably can't spend that much money and at some point it would backfire and have a negative effect. New Jersey is unique because Menendez isn't a real incumbent in the sense that he has served a full term - it's also unique because it's difficult to spend money on TV because you are paying for advertising to a lot of people in New York and the Philadelphia area who aren't eligible to vote.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

Henry, it's going to be pretty much what's expected. Steele's latest commercial is actually well done. He talks a good game in it, though he never mentions anywhere that he's a Republican running. He's had some well publicized differences in opinion with the governor, but it's never once gotten acrimonious. Steele is trying hard though to make people forget that he's running with the GOP, and is actually a lot more conservative than he's letting on. He's by far the best candidate the GOP has had in that state in years. I mean hell, they turned to Alan Keyes once or twice way back when. I suppose there's a chance he can pull it out, though Maryland is still blue enough (even if it's starting to shade just a tad closer to purple) that I think Cardin comes through and wins. He's well organized, knows what he's doing, oh, and he's a dem in Maryland.