2010

We’re heading into the home stretch. We’ve rounded the final corner and are now speeding towards the November finish line. If you haven’t figured it out I’m talking about the upcoming elections where Democrats are trying their best to stay ahead of the Republicans in the race for Congressional control. But Democrats appear to be running out of fuel, the result of a failed “Recovery Summer” and the consistent lack of results from their tax-and-spend policies. Republican’s on the other hand have filled up their gas tank, fueled by voter response to their vision of change.

Voter’s desire for a new perspective in Washington is most clear when there is money on the line. In this cash-strapped, job-hunting society, the only thing we care about more than money is what diet Kim and Khloe Kardashian are on this week (or, if you’re a guy, the fact that the NFL starts next week). But still, money is king. It is what gives us the roof over our heads, puts food on the table, and puts the kids through college. Without Mr. Franklin and Mr. Grant backing up our country (for me its more like Mr. Washington and Mr. Lincoln) it will be impossible for us to remain an economic superpower.

This importance is evidence in the polls. According to Gallup, 93 percent of those polled believe that the economy is at least “very important” in determining their vote in the fall. That is trailed only slightly by job (92 percent) and federal spending (81 percent). That means three of the top four voting cues all have one thing in common – money – either the ability to earn it or the concern that Congress is mishandling it.

Saying an issue is important doesn’t necessarily tell you very much, so let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. Now that we know everyone is anxious to have a few more greenback’s in their pockets, the key question is which party do you believe can help you do that?

Of those polled by Gallup, 49 percent believe that Republicans would do a better job at fixing the economy while 38 percent believed Democrats would do a better job. That’s a +11 for the GOP. Americans also said they trust Republicans more than Democrats on the issue of jobs, albeit by a slimmer 5 percent margin. But rather than analyze issue by issue, there is a greater trend at play here. Of the nine issues asked about in the polls Americans trusted Republicans more than Democrats on seven of them (and healthcare was essentially a tie).

Democrats have squandered our trust. In October of 2006, just prior to Democrats’ making major gains following George Bush’s reelection, Democrats led on all eight issues polled at the time. Americans reward trust and punish any breach of it. We were given reason to hope that the “Washington way “would be changed. Promise after promise was thrown at us. Everything from a promise to “drain the swamp,” to a promise to pay for “every dime” of their plans, to a promise that if the stimulus passed unemployment would fall below 8 percent. But none of it came true. Promises of change were dashed against the rocks of the same old Washington. Nothing is different, except for now things are worse.

The economy is comatose, largely the result of uncertainty caused by overregulation and the necessity of tax hikes to pay off our crushing debts. Unemployment remains high because no companies are willing to make the commitment to hire unless the government makes a commitment to back off. And federal spending has soared with years of historic deficits still ahead. For better or worse Americans care a lot about money, and the government hasn’t given us much reason to trust what they are doing with it. Their seeming addiction to the “spend, spend, and spend some more” mindset is leading us into serious trouble. They spend on stimulus, they spend on bailouts, they spend for healthcare reform. I can’t even list all their spending bills because I just don’t have the room.

Americans live within a budget. We are forced to balance our checkbooks, keep our accounts in the positive, and make regular payments on any debts we have. Why should we trust a Democratic Party who thinks they play by different rules? We shouldn’t. Or given the recent poll results perhaps it would be more appropriate to say – we don’t. Fortunately, with November right around the corner we’ll soon have an opportunity to show them just how much we appreciate their breach of trust.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Commitee

http://speakout.crnc.org/blog/2010/09/02/democrats-breach-of-trust-could-lead-to-big-november-losses/

Tonight I was on BIG THINK listening to the great Anatoly Karpov talk chess when I came across the following video in which Newt Gingrich discusses how the GOP can win big in 2012.  

To wit--

"I think what you have to have is a very balanced campaign.  At the national level you wanna have a very social conservativism, but you also wanna have economic opportunity, and economic growth and jobs; and you also wanna have a strong national security and homeland security plank. Balancing all three so that the people see clearly that you represent a broad solution to the country's needs strikes me as the key to success in 2010 and 2012."  

The full interview is posted here.  

If there is only one person in the world for whom the oil spill disaster in the Gulf is a blessing in disguise, that man is Charlie Crist.

From photos of the Governor surveying the spill to soundbites of him demanding full compensation for Florida's spill related damages, Crist's handling of the spill has offered him the chance to look like a leader, above politics, fighting for Florida. But his favorables, according to Quinnipiac's June 9th survey, haven't changed dramatically from the more difficult days of early 2010 and late 2009. His current job approval, at 57%, is lower than it was in October 2009 when Rubio's insurgency was underway. His favorables today are lower than the October poll as well, currently at 52%.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio has struggled to pivot out of primary mode and into a general. The shift from running as "the true conservative" to a general election candidate will not be an easy one, and it becomes more and more critical with each tough poll that the Rubio campaign make that transition and begin to build his case to an audience beyond Tea Parties and local GOP groups.

There are a number of things going in Crist's favor - but don't count Rubio out. Five months is an eternity in politics. Looking at the recent polls and exit polling data going back to 1994, there are a variety of factors that will keep this race interesting through November.

1)Florida's unemployment rate is the fifth highest in the nation at 11.7%. There's an anecdote my colleagues and I have been using recently to describe the current political environment. Imagine a run-down house on that is on fire. Sure, the windows need repair, the house could use a coat of pain, the lawn needs to be cut. But until you put out the fire, the rest of that is irrelevant. The fire in politics today is the unemployment rate; until jobs come back to Florida, everything else is a distraction. When you can't drive down a suburban street without seeing foreclosure signs, voters have bigger issues they are voting on than whether or not former party chair Jim Greer had an illegal consulting arrangement with the Florida GOP. The temptation will be high for candidates to get into discussions about party credit card statements and backroom deals but things in Florida are very serious, and voters will respond to the candidates that take the economic crisis seriously.

2) Around one out of four voters in 2010 in Florida is likely to be independent. In the 2006 election, 24% of voters in the Governor's race were independent - a number that jumped to 29% in the Presidential race in 2008, in congruence with the nationwide trend of a small bump in independents. Capturing these voters is key. Currently, Crist is winning 51% of independent voters according to the June 9 Quinnipiac poll. This is not particularly surprising - both Meek and Rubio have been fighting for their partisan supporters - but if Crist continues to sustain a majority of the independent vote, he will be incredibly formidable heading into November.

3) As a result, Rubio must improve his brand with independents. Republicans know Marco Rubio. They love Marco Rubio. Only a quarter haven't formed an opinion about him, and only 11% don't like him. When it comes to locking down his side, he's good. His bigger problem comes from independents, where is fav/unfav is roughly even at 31-30. He absolutely needs to have favorables that are over 50% among independents in order to be competitive with Crist.

4) Kendrick Meek still doesn't have a statewide brand, and if he develops one, he will slightly erode Crist's share of the vote. Crist currently pulls in a whopping 37% of Democratic voters. I believe this has a lot to do with the fact that 69% of voters, including 59% of Democrats, that say they haven't heard enough about Meek to form an opinion. As the election proceeds and all candidates hit the airwaves one can expect Crist's advantage to erode. These days, a candidate can build a brand almost overnight - consider that Rick Scott came out of nowhere and now boasts 53% of Florida voters who have an opinion about him. Meek may not be armed with the same kind of war chest, but by election day it is highly unlikely that Meek will still be an unknown to 7 out of 10 voters.

5) Painting Crist as an opportunist is not enough - people think everyone does what's popular. The conventional wisdom is that if Rubio pulls down Crist's favorables and brands Crist as a political opportunist, he can gain ground. The Quinnipiac poll showed that almost half of Florida voters (48%) think Crist makes decisions based on "what's popular" - a charge they also believe about Marco Rubio (42%). When the question is asked generally about "most public officials", 74% say they usually do what is popular. Fighting the battle over whether or not Crist is "principled" isn't fighting a battle on which Rubio has some major advantage in the general electorate. Furthermore, it's not as if Florida voters didn't see associate Crist's defection from the GOP with ulterior motives - 60% said he left the Republican party because he couldn't win the primary, including 57% of independents. Voters aren't naïve on this point. If Rubio spends five months beating up on Crist as an opportunist and neglecting to build his own favorables among independents, it's not likely to be as productive as he'd like.

Most folks I talk to say that in order for Rubio to have a fighting chance against Crist, he needs to bring down Crist's favorables. Of course, that strategy might yield a slight bump in standing, but I don't believe it is nearly enough to win. Voters already assume politicians do what they need to do to get elected. They already assume Crist has made politically motivated moves in this race. And they vote for him anyways. The problem isn't Crist's favorables, the problem is Rubio's neutral brand image among independents. And the way for Rubio, Crist, or Meek (or any candidate in any race, for that matter) to build that brand is to become the leader on the issue of the economy and jobs.

Crist may be getting a break in the press with his handling of the oil spill. But the ultimate impact of the oil spill is more than environmental, it is economic. If tourism dollars start leaving the state and the economic situation grows more dire, the primacy of the economy in this and all races will become even greater. In January 2007 when Crist was sworn into office, Florida's unemployment rate was 3.5%. Besides March 2007, every month that Charlie Crist has been Governor, Florida's unemployment rate has gotten worse. Even the national unemployment rate doesn't have a trend as dramatically consistent as that, and even though the national rate has levelled off, Florida's keeps getting worse. If Rubio wants to take Crist head on, he should - but with economic policy contrasts that demonstrate both how Crist failed to ameliorate the jobs situation and with how Rubio would propose to fix the problem. Rubio rose to fame as the "ideas" man in Tallahassee, and it is that same focus on "ideas" that can be his ticket to Washington in November.

(This item is cross-posted at Pollster.com)

 Last week The Washington Post ran a story on veteran Republican operative Fred Malek and his role in one of the Nixon administration's many untoward activities, specifically memos Malek wrote singling out Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  As one who has always found the Nixon era of particular fascination, I can tell you this is just one of many examples of Richard Nixon's special paranoia toward Jews and other minorities finding its way into administration policy.  Along with Watergate, this aspect of the Nixon administration will always stain its place in history, marring a record that might otherwise have reflected significant accomplishment.

No one, including Malek, condones his actions nearly four decades ago, and he has long since apologized.  His contrition seems genuine, given his presence on the board of the America-Israel Friendship League.  He has been defended by no less a figure than Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman, as well as Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), a close personal friend of Malek's.

However, the Post story was clearly driven by Democrats, ostensibly because of Malek's appointment to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's budget reform committee.  Most interesting, though, is the prominent place accorded to Jon Vogel, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).  

Why is the DCCC interested in a decades-old sin by a state appointee?  Because Malek also happens to chair the American Action Network, a new 501(c)(4) the DCCC expects to spend $25 million to target Democrats in the fall.  The DCCC apparently hopes to damage the American Action Network's credibility, and probably also hopes that some of this will rub off on GOP House candidates, some of whom weren't even born yet during the Nixon administration, in a classic guilt-by-association ploy.

Some Democrats, including Virginia Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, don't agree with this strategy, probably because it reeks of desperation.  Facing a national midterm election (i.e. a referendum on the Democrats) in a time of near-double-digit unemployment and record deficits, this is what the DCCC comes up with?  This may tell us more about the 2010 midterms than any poll or pundit ever could.

I might be setting myself for a healthy serving of crow on November 3rd, but I get a distinct feeling that the GOP may be headed toward to a seat gain in the House of epic proportions -- somewhere over 50 seats and well above the historical high point for recent wave elections (the 50-55 seats we experienced in elections like 1946 and 1994). 

All in all, I don't think a 70 seat gain is out of the question.  

I'll admit that a lot of this is prediction is pure gut. I probably sounded crazy when I said Marco Rubio kinda had a shot against Crist a year ago, and that Scott Brown kinda had a shot against Coakley, but if anything I wished I'd been even bolder in those predictions given the roller-coaster volatility of this political environment.

Not all elections are created equal. In most elections, most incumbents have an impregnable advantage and elections are fought between the 40-yard-lines. 

This is not one of those elections. 

It's true that people are pissed, etc. etc. It's true that Republicans benefit from an enthusiasm gap, etc. etc. But when you see numbers like dissatisfied independents lining up 66 to 13 percent behind the Republican candidate for Congress, and Republicans leading by 20 among very enthusiastic voters, all the momentum -- not most of it -- is in one direction. That last bastion of political stability -- incumbent advantage -- is inoperative in this political environment as incumbency has been become tantamount to a four letter word. Just 49 percent would re-elect their Congressman, compared to 40 percent who would throw the bum out. That's significant. Usually, people want to throw Congress over the ledge while toasting their Congressman. 

There are a number of structural reasons I think things line up in favor a tsunami-like event: 

The-politics-is-just-getting-crazier thesis. Crist-Rubio. Scott Brown. NY-23. How many situations have we been faced in the last 12 months where the side once given less than 10 percent odds has surged to become the favorite, if not the winner? That's a function of political volatility and voter anger, but it's also a reflection of the fact that the stakes are higher. 

Bailouts, stimulus, health care not baked in yet. Voters have not had a chance to render their judgment on the 50% expansion of government power and influence since September 2008. Both candidates for President in 2008 supported the TARP bailout. The stimulus was slipped in after the election, and Obama never campaigned on a package of that magnitude. 

Voters now strongly disapprove of the three great government expansions of the last two years -- TARP, the stimulus, and the health care bill. The political impact of these events has not yet been reflected in the partisan makeup of Congress in any competitive race except one -- the Massachusetts Senate special election.

The case for a tidal wave can be summed up as follows. There have been great changes in the country since the last election that voters resoundingly reject, and combined with still high unemployment and voter anxiety, the conditions are there for a much greater than usual counter-response. (In 1993-94, Bill Clinton was only able to trim marginally around the edges compared to the last months of Bush and then Obama, and the economy was much stronger than it is today.) 

We can safely double Cook and Rothenberg. Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg are the deans of House race prognostication. Their current model projects a seat gain somewhere in the low-20s. Election Projection largely mirrors this. But a 20-30 seat projection is based on woefully incomplete information: you're pretty much only factoring in the obvious McCain seats with Democrats elected in 2006 or after, or open seats, and largely guessing based on fundraising numbers because there has been next to no polling done in individual House races yet. 

[UPDATE: A reader writes in to note that Cook has been talking up seat gains of between 30-40 seats for a month or more.]

Cook and Rothenberg also tend to be conservative: if a district is Democratic for any reason, they probably won't move it to toss-up or lean R without a string of polls with the Republican in the lead or some sort of phenomenal candidate recruitment disparity. Scott Brown wasn't projected by anyone to be a lean takeover until the very end. 

The traditional political tip sheets don't reflect newly competitive candidates with a living, breathing Republican candidate against long-term Democratic incumbents in conservative seats for the first time in ages -- candidates like Rick Berg in ND-AL, Sean Duffy in WI-7 (disclaimer: client), Morgan Griffith in VA-9, and the primary winner in MO-4 against Ike Skelton. 

There is a tendency to underestimate waves. This wave has been on the horizon for a while, but those who were around in 1994 will remember how it took everyone by surprise, with even a more mild 40-seat gain needed to take control regarded as a remote possibility in October. The media -- particularly this media -- will always underestimate waves, and doubly so with Republican waves. 

This was also true to an extent with the Democrats in 2006. The Democrats' 30-seat gain was the high end of mainstream projections, but things really turned south for Republicans in late September with the Mark Foley scandal. In September, Republicans were seen as an even bet to keep the House on Intrade, and the bar the Democrats needed to clear then was a piddling 15 seats. Right now, Intrade already has Republicans as close to an even bet to take the 40 seats they need to claim the majority. 

Finally, and this is more of an intangible macro-level effect, does the fact that the 2010 wave has been far more well discussed in advance than the 1994 wave make it more or less likely to exceed expectations? New media has certainly made it possible to organize and move information faster than in 1994, but what about the Democrats ability to get inside this cycle? 

We are coming off two successive, ahistorical Democratic wave elections. Democrats have managed to swing something like 52 House seats in the last two elections. They are at an historic high water mark, as President Obama recently acknowledged. 

The fact that Democrats were able to pad their majority in 2008 would not have happened but for the fact that Obama changed the electorate. As I noted right after the election, Republicans in Congress were killed by the fact that young people voted straight ticket -- for Obama and then for Democrats in Congress. 

One could argue that 2008's political environment wasn't any for crappier for Congressional Republicans nationally than 2006 -- and in some ways it was better since we managed to pick off some seats, yet the surge in youth and minority turnout produced a double Democratic wave. 

I don't think I'm making an Earth-shattering statement when I say that the Obama coalition will not be there in 2010. In fact, one could argue that if one simply returned to the dismal, scandal-ridden 2006 environment with that same electorate, we'd be 10 to 20 seats better off than we are now. Now, start factoring in stuff like Republicans tied or leading in the generic ballot, which they hardly ever were even in years the successfully held the House, like 2002 and 2004. And more tellingly, the bumper crop of good candidates that's stepped forward after the drought of 2006 and 2008. 

I've argued thus far that political whiplash may be greater this year. But in truth, it may not be that much worse than the utter Republican collapse from 2004 to 2006. That collapse produced a loss of 30 House seats. But the starting point was a stable equilibrium established over 5 successive election cycles without a double digit gain in seats by either party. The starting point in 2010 is a very unstable one where Democrats have accumulated more than 50 new seats in four years, over 20 of them somewhat artificially because of the Obama coalition. 

The A-factor. Much of this argument so far has been a paint-by-numbers look at the national environment and the reasons why Republican gains may be underestimated. But what will supercharge our gains -- taking a 40 seat gain and stretching it into a 50, 60, even 70 seat gain -- will be continued voter anger and frustration with Washington which manifests itself in record-low Congressional job approval numbers after two successive elections when Americans voted for "change." 

In this kind of election, we will probably be talking about half a dozen to a dozen takeovers on Election Night that weren't on anyone's target list, that didn't see a dime in national advertising, that it was just assumed Democrats would win 60-40. There will be moments like Dan Rostenkowski or Dollar Bill Jefforson losing their seats completely out of the blue. 

Where? I'd look to any seat where the incumbent Democrat has done something to anger voters locally (flip-flopping on HCR seems to be a common theme) where we've got a strong candidate. In Massachusetts, we seem to have attracted good candidates in the wake of Scott Brown, and I could see Niki Tsongas and Barney Frank getting real races (Brown carried both their districts). Other sleeper districts include NY-1 (Rob Bishop), TN-5 (Jim Cooper), and FL-22 (Allen West vs. Ron Klein), where, oh by the way, we lead.

Even if I'm being optimistic, there is a certain logic (that the netroots have employed in a few election cycles now) of more traditional "smart money" going into the most winnable seats, and the online grassroots playing to expand the map. This year the perfect opportunity to put such a plan in action. If it's true that no Democrat is safe, we need to be looking at the seats that aren't even on the Cook and Rothenberg reports, or at best, on the very edges, for potential pickup opportunities to invest in. In the 30 to 45 days of the cycle, there should be a moneybomb every day to one of these targeted districts designed to drag them into contention and create a "terrorism effect" for every Democrat on the ballot. 

This first starts with good information. Earlier tonight on Twitter, I started a conversation about building a target list that would rank ALL 253 Democrat seats by likelihood of a Republican takeover, similar to what exists in Britain right now. Let's start thinking of where we can knock the Dems off balance and extend what are sure to be considerable gains. 

Good resources for House races: Election Projection and Key House Races.

I am proud and honored to have recently received the endorsement from my dear friend and fellow conservative, state Senator Shane Massey.

The following is a statement from Senator Shane Massey:

“When I decided last year to run for Congress, I did so, in large part, out of a frustration with what America has become. I am deeply concerned about irresponsible borrowing and spending, excessive government involvement in private affairs, and an elitist, out-of-touch Congress that seems to care very little about what the average American wants.”

“Although I am no longer a candidate for Congress, my concern about the direction of this country has not changed.  But correcting that course will not be easy.  It will require strong and consistent conservative leaders who will fight to shake up the Washington establishment with commons sense solutions.”

“We are fortunate in this congressional race to have several decent and well-qualified candidates.  I’ve gotten to know them all over the past year, and I consider them all friends.  But I get to vote for just one, and I intend to vote for Rep. Jeff Duncan.”

“With Jeff, what you see is what you get.  He talks frequently of his commitment to end the borrowing and spending binge in Washington and his determination to protect the values South Carolinians hold dear.  And that’s not just campaign rhetoric.  Jeff has been a consistent conservative during his service in the S.C. House of Representatives.  He’s been endorsed by the fiscally conservative National Club for Growth.  In fact, Jeff is one of just eleven candidates in the nation along with Sen. Jim DeMint to receive that endorsement.”

“We need Jeff’s brand of leadership and character in Washington.  I’m proud to support him for the 3rd Congressional District nomination, and I encourage others to do so, as well.”

Senator Massey represents Aiken, Edgefield, Saluda, and McCormick in the South Carolina State Senate.

To read more on Sen. Massey’s endorsement and local and national reaction please go to www.JeffDuncan.com.

JD

Well done, RNC.  

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They said we were going to be the foundation of a new Democratic movement. They labeled us as a generation upon which Democrats could build a political dynasty. They thought we bled blue.  They were wrong.

A little more than a year after Barack Obama won 18-29 year olds by a 2-to-1 margin, young adults are changing course. We were wooed by the promise of “change”, only to find a year later that things have changed for the worse. Washington is different, but only because it is bigger. Government’s spending has transformed, but only in the sense that they are more profligate. The reach of government into our lives has been altered, but only because their arm is longer. This is not the change we voted for and we’re taking note.

A new poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics is the latest evidence of the growing shift of young adults towards the Republican Party. The reason? The poll suggests there is a growing lack of trust in governmental institutions to do the right thing and a concomitant desire to reduce its scope.

As President Obama and Democratic leaders continue to try and expand the role of government, young adults are beginning to push back. This is becoming most palpable in the growing enthusiasm gap found among Millennials. As Harvard’s Institute of Politics explains,

“A warning sign for Democrats in Congress – young Republicans under 30 are statistically more likely than young Democrats to say that they will ‘definitely be voting in November”

Other key takeaways showing the Republican momentum among young adults:

• Among Millennials, more than 2-in-5 (41%) Republicans will definitely be voting, compared to 35% of Democrats
• Of voters 18-29, those who voted for McCain are more likely to say they will definitely vote than those who voted for Obama (53%-to-44%)
• Young adults who disapprove of President Obama’s job performance are more likely to vote than those who approve by a 35%-to-30% margin

This represents the perfect time for Republicans to become the brand of change that young adults are looking for. Our lifetimes have been filled with examples of government failure. Whether it be an education system that has seen no statistical improvement despite ever-increasing federal funds, or a entitlement system that looks more financially untenable by the day, we have been given little reason to trust that the government is the answer to our problems. As the party of limited government, Republicans can capture the hearts and minds of young conservatives.

But we must be active in our approach. As the voice of young conservatives, College Republicans stand are in the perfect position to educate and activate a new generation of Republicans. We can succeed where Obama and Democrats failed.  The Harvard poll asked,

The question at this moment is: Will our political leadership in Washington and around the country heed this new call – a call for Millennials to make government work and follow through on the bright promise that a generation dedicated to public service has come to passionately believe in?

It is clear that Millennials are looking for answers somewhere. Democrats in Washington have given all the wrong responses. Republicans now stand in the wings, waiting for their chance to heed the call in November 2010. But they cannot win without the support of young adults. College Republicans stand prepared to fill the void – to channel the energies of a generation who is ready for real change and looking for a party willing to give it to them. The enthusiasm is on our side and College Republicans will be there to capture it.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

Read more: www.collegerepublicans.org

After the March 2nd Texas primary, CNN proclaimed "Tea party changes tone, but not outcome of Texas primary." Politico's Jonathan Martin asks, "Is the tea party movement a paper tiger?" Locally, a San Angelo, Texas paper framed the result as "GOP incumbents held seats against Tea Party."

This is a classic straw man, and a dramatic misreading of the tea party's political objectives. 

Somehow, national media types got it into their heads that the tea party movement was the magic elixer for the kinds of unknown, underfunded and largely unskilled candidates who run in every race to claim the mantle of "tea party candidate" and knock off incumbents. A perusal of the Texas results at the Congressional level shows that the over/under for random, unknown unchallengers (a/k/a "tea party candidates") to incumbents was about 14%. This is basically the "none of the above" vote that materializes in every primary. When a prohibitive frontrunner has a semi-credible challenger, the frontrunner usually wins 70-30. Even when the challenger is unknown or unacceptable, 15 or 20 percent is doable. Convicted felon Lyndon LaRouche got that in some Democratic primaries against Bill Clinton in '96. 

Beyond that, the subtext is also that the tea party empowers uniquely conservative candidates, with Rubio/Crist as the model for every primary in the country. 

Again, no. 

It's clear that there is a lot more primary activity than there was in '06 and '08, largely because the prospects of getting elected as a Republican this year are so good. And in those primaries, proclaiming oneself a "tea party candidate" is about as fashionable as proclaiming oneself a "social media expert."

Going state by state and district by district, the case for conservative ascendancy in primaries is muddled at best. For every Rubio/Crist, there is a Mark Kirk walk-in-the-park. The '08 primaries showed that Republican primary voters are if nothing else pragmatic. 

A few basic misconceptions underlie the expectation that the more conservative the primary candidate, the better their chances are at winning. And the main one is that conservatives are uniquely advantaged this year because the tea parties show the party is moving right. 

This notion would require one to believe that the grassroots base of the GOP -- not its leaders, but its base -- was somehow un-conservative prior to '09 and '10. There's no evidence for that. Fueled by Rush Limbaugh and talk radio, 1994 was a conservative year. In fact, 1994 probably marked the end of the shift in the ascendancy of conservatives over moderates in Republican grassroots politics, a shift that started with Goldwater. Ever since '94, the ideological change within the Republican Party has been marginal at best.

What has changed in the last two years, is that Republicans are now unshackled from having to defend the Bush Administration and the mood of the country, and inside the Republican Party in particular, has grown more solidly anti-establishment. Those changes alone can explain the emergence of the tea party movement. 

While the case for conservative ascendancy in primaries is muddled, what isn't muddled is this: run as the milquetoast candidate of the arrogant establishment, and you lose. 

Practically every electorally relevant example points in this direction. 

NY-23? Check. 

Florida Senate? Check.

Massachusetts? Check. 

Texas Governor? Check. 

In Texas, the tea party candidate was not Debra Medina. It was Rick Perry, whose political fortunes were revived around the Tax Day tea parties last year. That points to a movement that is much more broadly relevant than the marginal nutjob candidacies that media is holding up as an example of the movement's failures. I know that one can point to Medina strength among the organizers -- and I've certainly played up the role Ron Paul's brigades have played in that effort -- but there is a convincing case that the rank-and-file attendees and their compatriots who followed from the radio dial or Fox News were solidly with Perry. And that's who matters when delivering votes in a primary, as opposed to a straw poll. 

But more importantly, the movement was aligned against Kay Bailey Hutchison, who barely disguised her sense of entitlement at holding not one, but two statewide offices. Strike one was trying to elbow aside Perry with a blatant "It's my turn" appeal not to run again, and then going ahead with a challenge. Strikes two and three were the Texas Two-Step around resigning her office, which, quelle surprise, will likely end up with Hutchison holding on to public office against her word. 

The KBH fall is of a piece with the staggering fall of "All About Charlie" Crist, who ran on a sense of entitlement before he finished the job voters elected him to do. Only a few words need to be said about Charlie Crist: pride before the fall. 

And NY-23 was a similar case of an arrogant establishment attempting to oppose its will against that of primary voters, and getting pwned in the process. 

Do you see a pattern here? 

Yes, each of these cases was one of a "conservative" beating a "moderate" -- but each also had the essential ingredient of a particularly noxious stench of self-entitlement on the part of the losers. 

As ever, public servants need to place the emphasis on the latter part of that title: servant. Those advantaged by a long career of winning elections need to be particularly humble and even servile to the will of the electorate, especially in this environment. Votes cannot be assumed. They must be earned. 

There is no easy template for tea party victory in a Republican primary. Saying you are Marco Rubio does not make you Marco Rubio. Rubio's success is due as much to Crist's arrogance and the movement-like aura Rubio has been able to build around himself as it is to a simple ideological contrast. Those whose job it is to run and win elections quickly learn that attributes -- those pesky personal qualities like honesty, integrity, intelligence, and authenticity -- matter a whole lot more than issues, even in primaries. This is not diminish the importance of principle but to acknowledge the reality that it alone is not enough, and having a good, plausible candidate, campaign, and message still matters a whole lot. 

You can argue with me on this point, but the question remains.

Why has no one asked for Steele's resignation?  Upon reading this story regarding his spending as leader of the GOP establishment, I seriously want to know how this man is still employed. 

With no exceptional leadership qualities, and continual string of Steele-specific faux pas.....no wonder the GOP is having problems.

I call for new leadership.