The midterms: A ‘rowdier’ Senate?

Politico’s Martin takes a look at the possible implications of Tea Party nominees: “The decorous and staid U.S. Senate could get a lot rowdier in 2011… [T]hey aren’t expecting to come to the capital to go along so they can get along. They are non-conformists who tend to chafe at authority, with both Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada making names for themselves by bucking the established order.

The Washington Post’s Cillizza and Roll Call's McArdle praise the Club for Growth, whose heavily funded South Carolina candidates Tim Scott and Jeff Duncan both won their primaries yesterday. Cillizza: “Those victories prove, yet again, that the Club's support -- in the form of bundled donations and spending on ads and direct mail -- matters in a real way in contested Republican primaries.”

McArdle: "Perhaps overshadowed in a primary season that has come to be defined by the noise of the tea party movement is the current winning streak of a much older conservative powerhouse: the anti-tax Club for Growth. A day after GOP House candidates Tim Scott and Jeff Duncan won their respective runoffs in South Carolina, Club for Growth President and former Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Ind.) was crowing about the rise of 'Generation Club.' Those wins come in the wake of GOP Rep. Tom Graves’ special election victory in Georgia earlier this month and a pair of Senate primary victories by club-backed candidates."

But let's remember: The Club for Growth has time and again shown it can make a dent in GOP primaries. What will be interesting to see if some of these candidates end up costing Republicans in competitive races in the general election.


ALABAMA: “Republican candidate for governor Robert Bentley has picked up an endorsement from Tim James’ campaign chairman, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Callahan of Mobile,” the AP reports.

CALIFORNIA: “It looks like Californians can brace themselves for a long season of campaign ads,” the L.A. Times writes after previewing gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s first general-election ad: “Through a stylized montage that moves through Brown's four decades in California politics, Whitman makes reference to the death penalty and Bill Clinton to make the case against Brown. The ad uses a clip from a debate between Brown and Clinton when the two men ran against each other for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. In the clip, Clinton says Brown ‘reinvents himself every year or two.’”

KENTUCKY: “Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul is seeking fundraising help from GOP lawmakers who voted for the massive 2008 financial bailout, flip-flopping on a campaign promise to shun those lawmakers,” the AP writes. Nine of the 12 senators listed on an invitation to a D.C. fundraiser tonight voted in favor of the TARP legislation.

LOUISIANA: “An aide to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) resigned Wednesday after reports emerged that he had pled guilty to after an arrest for attacking an ex-girlfriend with a knife,” The Hill writes. “According to ABC News, Furer has spent the last five years in Vitter's office working, among other things, on women's issues.”

MARYLAND: An internal Democratic poll for Rep. Frank Kratovil has him leading 44%-39% despite the electorate's party preference choice for a Republican 39%-32%.

OHIO: Stu Rothenberg: "In bashing Bush, Buckeye State Democrats are scoring points against Portman. Not everyone, however, is sure whether the Bush strategy will prove effective nationally or even in Ohio."

TEXAS:
Former President Bill Clinton will endorse Bill White's bid for governor of Texas today, Politico reports.

Discuss this post

Yesterday, there was only one vote against granting subpoena power to the upcoming committee on oil spills. Subpoena power basically grants the committee the right to call people in to ask them questions. To ask them QUESTIONS. Want to know who the 1 person was who doesn't think the government should even have the right the ask businesses QUESTIONS when they screw up and destroy the entire southern coast of the nation?

Why yes... that would be libertarian Ron Paul.

Let me repeat this one more time: The adherants to this philosophy are so extreme that they believe the government should not even have the power to QUESTION businessmen when they screw up on an epic scale.

Think about whose son Kentucky is probably going to vote into the senate this year. Now tell me this person and Sharron Angle are going to craft ANY legislation that is going to solve a SINGLE problem this nation faces.

Name ONE problem these people will solve.

  • 2 votes
Reply#1 - Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:23 AM EDT

Scarey thought. If voters really understood the extreme ideology of the liberatarians, Club for Growth, Tea Party, they would run as fast as they could to the nearest exit. The problem is they hear only the tax, small government, debt words without researching the rest.

  • 1 vote
#1.1 - Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:35 AM EDT
Reply

Old Nag Twitwoman's many lying ads are going to lose her the race as Californians get sick and tirted of looking at her whining face.

Yeah the Senate will get rowdier if Tea Bagging malcontents get in office as they are nothing but spoiled whining brats with no sense of proper decorum and not enough intelligence to get into reasoned debate.

Moron Rant Paul is just another typical lying politician as he now asks for help from the same repugnant one politicians he's been blasting for voting for TARP. Moron Rant Paul is nothing new, he's just a chip off the old facist racist dishonest father who has been the crazy uncle of the GOP for decades. The Kentucky Fried Chicken is just another flip flopping liar from the party of sore loser liars!

  • 1 vote
Reply#2 - Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:25 AM EDT

Only election day Nov 2010 will answer whether or not the Tea Party or Club for Growth can win in the general. Most people are center right/left moderates who do not support the extremes of either side. How successful Paul, Angle and company are depends a great deal on the middle moderates accepting the extreme beliefs of these groups. I'm not so sure people will.

Iowa may have an interesting Governor's race because the extreme right Bob Vander Plaats is considering a run as an independent against Branstad and Culver. He won 40% of the GOP primary vote with Branstad around 50. Vander Plaats has remained very quiet about this which leads me to think that if he were NOT giving consideration to running as an indie, he would have already made that clear. Branstad and the GOP are working feverishly to stop Vander Plaats.

  • 1 vote
Reply#3 - Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:29 AM EDT

They already do nothing so why not make it more fun to watch as the do nothing?

  • 1 vote
Reply#4 - Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:29 AM EDT

A roudier Senate? If Paul and Angle get elected, Paul will make sure black people are stripped of many rights, and good ol' Angle will make sure to make booze illegal - for the gun toters and everyone.

    Reply#5 - Thu Jun 24, 2010 12:04 PM EDT
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