Read their lips: No more Akins
Now, top Republicans are considering splitting the difference between the heavy hand they wielded in 2010 that prompted sharp blowback from the right and their mostly hands-off approach of 2012. Both strategies produced a handful of unelectable candidates, so senators are gravitating toward a middle ground: engage in primaries so long as they can get some cover on the local level.
“We ought to make certain that if we get engaged in primaries that we’re doing it based on the desires, the electability and the input of people back in the states that we’re talking about,” Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, the incoming National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, told POLITICO. “And not from the perception of what political operatives from Washington, D.C., think about who ought to be the candidate in state X.”…
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who in his 2010 primary defeated the candidate McConnell backed, was skeptical of a more aggressive NRSC.
“You’re talking to a guy who wasn’t the handpicked guy, so I’m unlikely to think we should handpick anyway,” Paul said. “I’m a believer that the voters get to make these decisions.”
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Politico really cares. /sarc
MechanicalBill on November 19, 2012 at 8:58 AM
The Akin bomb was only allowed to go off because GOPers let them put that rape position in the party platform… people like Romney et al deserve what they get.
ninjapirate on November 19, 2012 at 9:03 AM
While I’m eager to see fewer Akins representing the GOP in our general elections, let’s keep in mind that Marco Rubio and Rand Paul both overcame establishment opposition to win their primaries.
SoRight on November 19, 2012 at 9:07 AM
Akin is one guy. Who said something stupid. And would still have won anyway if the GOP hadn’t stopped backing him. They’re just using this as an excuse to push more RINO candidates on us. Which is what lost us elections this time. No, Rand Paul is right. They need to stay out of the primaries, and then support whoever the Republican voters nominate.
Shump on November 19, 2012 at 9:08 AM
Once again the Washington Repub’s are getting it wrong. Did Akin screw up with what he said, you bet. But what sank him? The establishment Repub’s who savaged him and withheld funding (IE. Karl Rove and the gang). Repub’s can learn a lesson from the Dem’s. When their guys or gals screw up, they don’t eat them for lunch. They circle the wagons and drive on.
And running RINO Republican’s isn’t the answer, or else they would have won in red states like Massachusett’s and Washington State.
And far from given Sen. Roy Blunt a free ride, I’m of the opinion that he needs to be primaried as well. Especially after his idiotic comments regarding Obamacare, when he stated their were portions he liked.
Note that 60% of Missourian’s voted to pass Proposition E regarding who controls setting up the State Health Exchange. This states that Obamacare was a viable issue that wasn’t spent enough time on. As more businesses are impacted by Obamacare a smart politician would do well to highlight this, not say what parts he wants to keep.
A Missouri Republican.
RAN58 on November 19, 2012 at 9:08 AM
How do you connect this:
The Akin rape position.
To this:
Romney got what he deserved.
?
Mimzey on November 19, 2012 at 9:08 AM
They need to understand why Achin’ won the nomination. We had 2 much more acceptable candidates who split the vote between themselves while Achin’ was boosted by outside spending from McCasket and the Democrat Party.
I don’t want the GOP elites to take over handpicking our nominees. That’s how we end up with the likes of Dede Scuzzyflavor. Even Todd Achin’ was better than her. The key is to try to narrow down the number of people in these primaries. That way we don’t have a bunch of them splitting the vote and ending up with less desirable choices like Angle or Achin’.
The other issue going forward is we have to get these candidates to learn how to articulate fiscal and social conservatism in terms that don’t scare off voters. There were reports of seminars for Democrat politicians in the last couple years where they were coached on talking points. At the time I thought it was pathetic and sad, but in retrospect it worked brilliantly. We can sit here and mock idiots like Debbie What-a-dumb Schmuck for sounding like a pre-programmed robot, but she at least never utters anything as electorally suicidal as what Achin’ or even Mourdock said.
Doughboy on November 19, 2012 at 9:08 AM
Socons didn’t like Romney.
wargamer6 on November 19, 2012 at 9:10 AM
Once again Rand Paul is correct. The funny thing about GOP establishment lemmings is that they talk a good talk about fiscal conservativism and the US Constitution but will consistently vote for a$$clowns that are neither conservative or support the US Constitution…just look at Romney. But they will blindly vote for some joker like Akin because of his stance on abortion.
They will vote for people that consistently raise our debt and stomp on our constitutional rights but dry hump anyone that talks the talk about abortion even though there isn’t a darn thing we can do about it right now.
MoreLiberty on November 19, 2012 at 9:13 AM
Akin didn’t win because he wasn’t conservative enough.
Pablo Honey on November 19, 2012 at 9:15 AM
Akin didn’t win because he is a moron…like Rombama.
MoreLiberty on November 19, 2012 at 9:16 AM
fify
idesign on November 19, 2012 at 9:17 AM
What are they going to do about all the moderates that lost on election night? ie. linda mcmann, lingle et al.
ChunkyLover on November 19, 2012 at 9:20 AM
yeah just like Rand Rove.
ChunkyLover on November 19, 2012 at 9:21 AM
How about letting Palin pick the candidates, her win percentage is better than the entire GOP money machine!
She has the best political awareness of anyone out their!
Danielvito on November 19, 2012 at 9:22 AM
McMahon lost cuz she was running in Connecticut. I’m not gonna fault her for that. But there’s no doubt the RNSC failed miserably in a lot of winnable races. Thompson and Mack were both establishment candidates and lost, the latter by an inexcusably large margin considering his opponent voted for Obamacare in a state full of seniors.
Achin’ and even Mourdock can be chalked up to isolated incidents where dumb remarks hurt their chances. But there’s obviously some sort of problem starting at the top when both moderate and conservative candidates are repeatedly losing Senate races even in reddish states.
Doughboy on November 19, 2012 at 9:25 AM
Rand Paul really isn’t relevant in this conversation. He is from a solid Red state and was running for an open seat. Whoever won that primary was going to win. We need a much more focused effort to find electable conservatives in races against incumbents.
We have as many as 8 gettable Senate seats in 2014. We simply can’t have any more Akins or O’Donnells.
rockmom on November 19, 2012 at 9:26 AM
McCaskill was running subtly pro-Akin ads in the primaries. This should be a signal for some higher-level intervention. What needs to happen in circumstances like this is a pow-wow with both NRSC and the groups who have not yet chosen a side, but are likely to come down against the NRSC should they directly intervene, such as the Tea Party. The overriding issue with the NRSC is trust. Limit the outright intervention in primaries to taking out actual problem children, not just those not to the taste of the Establishment. Work with the locals, with their local knowledge, and with all sides of the primary, if possible.
Do your homework and research. Try to be able to come to the table with an idea of *what* the Democrats are likely holding off on until the general election. Imagine this pow-wow back in 2010, if the NRSC showed the Delaware Tea Party the Bill Maher tapes before the primary. It’s not like the show “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” was some big secret.
Encourage more than two major candidates for the R primaries. This ensures that if the NRSC comes to town with Candidate A flashing her bewbs on “Girls Gone Wild,” you are not forced to go with Establishment Man B.
Sekhmet on November 19, 2012 at 9:28 AM
What he said..:)
idesign on November 19, 2012 at 9:29 AM
Captain Crazy is back!
wargamer6 on November 19, 2012 at 9:29 AM
I never thought you left..:)
idesign on November 19, 2012 at 9:31 AM
What is the connection between someone who could be labeled a socon, and the specific claim of Akins regarding rape..and what does that have to do with Romney?
Mimzey on November 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM
Pains me to admit it, but you are right about the first part of that. Nobody ever thinks the party platforms matter, but this year it did. The Democrats set trap after trap on these issues and we walked right into them.
What galls me is that we never made any hay out of the extreme pro-abortion platform passed by the DNC, or the initial removal of God and Jerusalem, or the booing by the delegates when the latter were reinserted. But we had the wrong candidates to do that. Romney and Ryan wanted to stay away from the social issues and did. But they ended up being tagged by Akin’s extreme views anyway.
rockmom on November 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM
I’ve always been around.
wargamer6 on November 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM
I wouldn’t know. Ask them.
wargamer6 on November 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM
And no more Palins, while you’re at it.
bluegill on November 19, 2012 at 9:33 AM
Well the fact that he ran against the GOP establishment and won is significant. The same thing happened with Ted Cruz here in Texas. He ran against the GOP establishment candidate and all the opposing endorsements and won. He didn’t win by advocating that rape was somehow gods will, he ran on liberty and small government.
MoreLiberty on November 19, 2012 at 9:36 AM
If 11 million people in the US were raping their daughters, the political establishment would eventually find a way to make this rape acceptable because, heaven’s knows, they can’t just round up and arrest 11 million rapists just like that. And even if they did, who would mow our lawns? Besides, what rapist would ever vote for you if you say we should
deport themput them in jail?Now, one may say, of course, that entering the country illegally and rape are not analogous. No, not ethically. That’s not the point. The salient point is that even if it were, the result would be the same. Once enough people have had a blind eye turned to their illegal activities, enforcing the law at some future point becomes impossible – both logistically and politically. So rationalizing the acceptance of illegal immigrants is not borne of anything other than simple expediency. A cautionary tale.
keep the change on November 19, 2012 at 9:36 AM
Still wishing for names of this so-called GOP Establishment. Seems to me it’a always just “whoever didn’t like my guy/gal who just got the crap beaten out of them.”
The NRSC is there for a reason, and the Senators who run it all managed to win their elections, so they do know something about how to win. They picked a solid conservative, Jerry Moran, to head it for 2014 and Ted Cruz as vice chairman and Rob Portman as fundraising chair. That is a solid team that should inspire confidence from everyone. Mitch McConnell is not going to be involved, he has his own reelection to worry about.
rockmom on November 19, 2012 at 9:37 AM
fify
idesign on November 19, 2012 at 9:37 AM
There is none.
bluegill on November 19, 2012 at 9:38 AM
Are you serious? Rape – in and of itself – is wrong…morally wrong not just wrong because some government says it’s wrong. When you compare rapists with illegal immigrants we loose and loose big. There is no way to compare the two.
MoreLiberty on November 19, 2012 at 9:40 AM
Yep, Akin did screw up, but the RNC/Priebus did the right thing by basically abandoning the guy…and that was no small sacrifice considering the thin balance of power in the Senate was at stake.
Akin’s statements were his own, period. What should the GOP have done differently other than cutting and running? The whole sordid Akin affair, and his ultimate loss (which at times was looking pretty close heading towards election day) and had nothing to do with any “establishment” Republicans.
Were Akin’s statements about rape overblown? Not really…the whole subject of rape elicits explosive responses from the public. And rightly so. Any attempt by the GOP to defend the guy would have reverberated into the ultimately successful wins of Repubs around the country…and the Democrats would have probably taken even more seats than they did…never underestimate the power of the Left when it comes to demonizing ideological opponents.
And stupid statements made by any candidate can’t easily be preemptively prevented. All it takes is one brief sentence to put an end to an otherwise successful/respected campaign or term in office…see Trent Lott, George Allen, and quite a few others…and knowing who would be more or less likely to screw up by uttering moronic statements in the future has gotta be near impossible.
JetBoy on November 19, 2012 at 9:41 AM
If you are using Akin as a way to say we need less conservative candidates; that would be a negative.
But if you are saying that we need smarter politicians who can deal with a hostile media and learn how to answer a frickin policy question without it being amunition for Dems- then I will agree.
The problem is that “yes Akin’s position” seemed extreme, but Obama voted to refuse to give BORN babies medical treatment- you don’t see the media starting a ‘war on babies” meme. And pro-choice candidates are NEVER asked hard questions; if they were -you would get just as stupid answers.
melle1228 on November 19, 2012 at 9:43 AM
Here’s the tough thing about this. No one knew Akin was going to be Akin until he shoved his foot in his mouth in the worst way possible. You can’t necessarily anticipate that kind of thing. Aikin was an experienced legislator and practically a lock to win the Senate seat until he melted down.
No one knew Mourdock was going to practically repeat Akin’s exact foot in mouth trick. No one knew Lugar was going to be a childish prick and refuse to endorese or campaign for Mourdock after the primaries. That probably hurt Mourdock more than the abortion comments.
Unless we have some new fangled future machine that lets us see this stuff in advance, we just can’t anticipate some of these meltdowns. They just happen and we have to deal with them.
That said, we should do some candidate recruitment and preparation. We like to complain about not having a deep enough bench. Well, a deep bench doesn’t just happen. It takes work to put it together. We can’t just have our candidates handpicked by the DC Establishment, or whatever we’re calling the RNC these days. But they should definitely play a role if we want to build a governing majority to roll back as much of the socialist bureaucracy as possible.
dczombie on November 19, 2012 at 9:44 AM
Keep in mind that Richard Mourdock created – and promptly lost – an open seat in a red state. A terrible candidate is a terrible candidate no matter what state they’re in.
KingGold on November 19, 2012 at 9:45 AM
Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are both polished professionals and were great candidates. The guy Paul beat was also a great candidate and would have been a fine Senator. I don’t know as much about the guy Cruz beat, but I was happy with that result. But again, these are both solid Red states and these were open seats. The results are not applicable to races in 2014 where we have the chance to take out Democrat incumbents in 7 red states. We need to make sure we have non-crazy, polished people in those races.
rockmom on November 19, 2012 at 9:45 AM
Wow, you completely missed Keep the Change’s excellent point. Did you even read his/her second paragraph?
What is “loose” (sorry, had to do it) is your grasp of the importance of enforcing the law.
bluegill on November 19, 2012 at 9:47 AM
Akin’s position IS extreme, and it is a fantasy that has been advanced for years by pro-life absolutists. There isn’t a shred of evidence that a woman who is raped has a natural defense that prevents her from getting pregnant. But there are pro-life activists who keep pushing this nonsense because they want no exceptions on abortion, ever. These people are killing the Republican Party. They got control of the GOP platform this year and it got hung around the necks of all of our candidates, from Romney on down.
rockmom on November 19, 2012 at 9:49 AM
WRONG. Todd Akin already had a reputation for being a lightweight prone to making nutty statements. True, he wasn’t well-known at all nationally, but Claire McCaskill sure knew that he was the one she wanted to run against. Oh, yes, Claire knew very well.
bluegill on November 19, 2012 at 9:49 AM
Rand Paul was not a polished professional when he ran for Senate. Well, not a professional politician anyway. He is currently serving his first term of his first elected office. As these things go he’s a newbie.
dczombie on November 19, 2012 at 9:51 AM
You guessed at the connection.
I asked what you based it on.
By your response, I take it you don’t agree with the fiscal socons or the cultural socons or the ideological socons?
Mimzey on November 19, 2012 at 9:54 AM
This was a year that republicans bet would all be about the economy and took their eye off the Jerry Springer show that the Dems and media created in order to stay off the subject that mattered most. You start talking about the economy and they send out a token lesbian minority to hit a lame republican over the head with a chair. The audiences cares more about the fight than the original subject. We got beat by the Jerry Springer audience. We need to give the economy it’s own reality show on TLC and sex it up a bit.
MechanicalBill on November 19, 2012 at 9:55 AM
Very, very true. Akin was always a ticking time bomb. Just like Sharron Angle, just like O’Donnell. Only Mourdock’s idiocy was out of left field – and if not for Akin, he might well have survived it.
Which, of course, he demonstrated by celebrating his primary victory with the “legitimate rape” interview.
KingGold on November 19, 2012 at 9:55 AM
So are you making the case for more RNC involvement in the primaries? The RNC would have known his weaknesses and could have gotten behind a better candidate. We can blame McCaskill’s ads all we want but at the end of the day the primary voters picked Aikin and it wasn’t RNC influence that made them do it.
dczombie on November 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM
First off, I meant that the ‘no rape” exception seems extreme. I did not mean his rape comment i.e., why I said position and not comment. That being said, if you believe that it is life at conception then don’t you think it is a little hypoctritical to say there may be some exception (at no fault of the child) as to when you can terminate that life. The fricking NON RELIGIOUS argument to abortion is that it takes away the child’s civil rights. This doesn’t suddenly change because the child is born of the product of rape. And I am so sick of the BS and it all the socons fault etc. You do know that it was a combo of things; some which had NOTHING to do with Akin. Like the fact that our nominee was a fat cat businessman. And if our candidates don’t have the ability to sell themselves; it isn’t the socons fault.
melle1228 on November 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM
Mourdock could have won if Lugar hadn’t been a little crybaby about losing the primary.
dczombie on November 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM
Yep. Exactly.
These are the same people who will tell you that liberty is wrong and leads to anarchy – kind of like those on the left, but for different reasons of course.
beatcanvas on November 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM
I agree. That reality is the basis of the incrementalism of socialist/communist process.
Remember..its never enough. Honestly look at the history of black civil rights, feminism, gay rights, the environmental agenda etc.
Mimzey on November 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM
wargamer6 on November 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM
bluegill on November 19, 2012 at 9:33 AM
Always make me laught that the same people attacking palin for the last 4 years on every Palin thread with dripping venom and were telling how stupid we were to say romneycare couldn’t win are back telling us how to proceed now.
You morons have no credibility, Bluegill, you no it all piece of sh*t, saying every fu*king day how romneycare was great, electable etc.. Tou AZZ!!!
Danielvito on November 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM
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