John Murtha

In the wake of the Massachusetts Miracle we have achieved far more than even I dreamed possible. I had hoped for a serious scare and some recriminations on the part of the Democrats, not a shattering of party unity and confidence.  

Now what?

Well, I'm told that the GOP is going to "fight everywhere" this year. But not all fights are created equal.  Barring cash in an incumbent's  freezer, once a district gets to D+20 CPVI there's really no path to a Republican victory. And while some back bench incumbents may be weak reeds, it's rather likely that unlike Martha Coakley, they will go down quietly and with little notice from the public. A Zack Space meltdown in Zanesville, OH is not likely to make the national wires.

What the GOP should set aside some resources for is to call out the loudest, most partisan and least appealing leaders of the Democratic senate and house caucuses.  We know who they are. They are the ones who react like stuck pigs to being challenged. They are the ones whom we can readily point to a paper trail of advocacy for deficits, government intervention, and crony dealing.   And these are the people whom we can readily define as the Democratic party for swing voters.   

By their vociferous counterattacks, they will do our job of defining the opposition for us.  Their colleagues in swing districts and purple states will try to win their re-elections based on incumbency and alleged centrism; this plan is designed to make that strategy unworkable for any Democrat.

Some of these people are already "on the list"--Harry Reid and John Murtha.  My plan is to wxpand the list to folks in D+10 plus constituencies, since in the wake of Scott Brown, these seats are no longer locks in the present environment.

The chances that any of these seats actually "flip" to the GOP is still remote. I believe the recruitment of serious candidates and the allocation of resources is still wise for a number of reasons. It will drive the narrative in less high profile seats and force moderates to defend the leadership party line. It will conversely, cause the Democrats to hoard their cash to play defense and cause them to triage their less senior members in swing seats.  Finally, since these folks are easily identified villains to the Right, there's the possibility to drop moneybombs in these places.

Here's my list:

Chuck Schumer

Schumer defeated an obscure GOP assemblyman badly in 2004 in what was a non-campaign. Since then he's been enbolden to play partisan bomb thrower and is one of the  happiest Democrats to lambaste "teabaggers" for the temerity to question Washington.  Schumer is probably one of the most anti-gun and pro-abortion politicians ever elected to office, and has treated Wall Street as an ATM for his campaign warchest. Needless to say this isn't quite the agenda every New Yorker applauds--his recent poll ratings have slipped.

Schumer is still a heavy favorite, but two things make this more than an exercise in wish fulfillment. First is Schumer' arrogance, which may remind voters of disgraced former Governor Eliot Spitzer. Second is the demographics of the off-year NY electorate, where Upstate casts a higher percentage of the vote--indeed, nearly half.

Larry Kudlow (whom I thought was still a CT resident) is thinking about this race. But has anyone thought that an upstater associated with the Tea Party--like Doug Hoffman--might send Chuck into orbit?   

Steny Hoyer

Hoyer is Nancy Pelosi's second in command. Unlike San Fran Nan, he actually represents some Republicans in his suburban Maryland district which is only D+11.   As it is in the Washington, DC media market it's not a cheap district to run in, but any misstep by Hoyer will be promptly reported by the national press.  Hoyer will have to explain his party's agenda in a district which contains many of the same sort of outer suburban communities that were Scott Brown strongholds in MA. Good luck, Steny.

Barney Frank

Chris Dodd is gone, but the other architect of the ruinous subprime mortgage bubble, Barney Frank, thinks he's going to coast to re-election. Perhaps he'd best look at the voting results in MA 4 as it appears his district was carried by Scott Brown.  MA 4 is a D+14 district but it is a gerrymandered mess which includes areaas far from Frank's base inside Route 128. These communities--even the blue collar ones--turned hard against the Democrats in the special election.

I'll explain in more detail, but the key to making this seat truly competitive is candidate recruitment and pushing aside a perennial candidate who simply doesn't "fit" this district in favor of one who could peel off a critical region from Frank.  

Henry Waxman

Henry Waxman is probably the one member of Congress most directly responsible for the decline of America's industrial vigor.  As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee he is single handedly responsible for pressing forward on a multifront regime of regulation and government edicts.   He also was foursquare for the government takeover of health care enbodied in the House's "public option" bill.

His district includes Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Malibu so we can be sure the entertainment industry will shell out to give him around. That said, money he gets can't go to Indiana or new Jersey.  His district also now includes large chunks of the San Fernando Valley where a political agenda based on middle class concerns might well receive a receptive response. 

It's pretty clear we would need a very libertarian minded candidate to get an audience here. That said, a "cool" Republican would draw attention to the party and draw attention away from older socially conservative white men in the Red States. And a credible campaign against Waxman--inagine Republican lawn signs on Brentwood hillsides--would be magnified in the national media.

I cna think of less notorious Democrats like New York's Gary Ackerman or CT's Rosa DeLauro who have baggage, atropried campaign skills and districts with appreciable Republican activity. But the bigger point here is to draw out the loudest and least  persuasive advocates for Democratic control of government.

The Democrats made sure they got Jesse Helms a tough race every cycle hoping for a meltdown. Now it's our turn.   

In the wake of the Massachusetts Miracle we have achieved far more than even I dreamed possible. I had hoped for a serious scare and some recriminations on the part of the Democrats, not a shattering of party unity and confidence.  

Now what?

Well, I'm told that the GOP is going to "fight everywhere" this year. But not all fights are created equal.  Barring cash in an incumbent's  freezer, once a district gets to D+20 CPVI there's really no path to a Republican victory. And while some back bench incumbents may be weak reeds, it's rather likely that unlike Martha Coakley, they will go down quietly and with little notice from the public. A Zack Space meltdown in Zanesville, OH is not likely to make the national wires.

What the GOP should set aside some resources for is to call out the loudest, most partisan and least appealing leaders of the Democratic senate and house caucuses.  We know who they are. They are the ones who react like stuck pigs to being challenged. They are the ones whom we can readily point to a paper trail of advocacy for deficits, government intervention, and crony dealing.   And these are the people whom we can readily define as the Democratic party for swing voters.   

By their vociferous counterattacks, they will do our job of defining the opposition for us.  Their colleagues in swing districts and purple states will try to win their re-elections based on incumbency and alleged centrism; this plan is designed to make that strategy unworkable for any Democrat.

Some of these people are already "on the list"--Harry Reid and John Murtha.  My plan is to wxpand the list to folks in D+10 plus constituencies, since in the wake of Scott Brown, these seats are no longer locks in the present environment.

The chances that any of these seats actually "flip" to the GOP is still remote. I believe the recruitment of serious candidates and the allocation of resources is still wise for a number of reasons. It will drive the narrative in less high profile seats and force moderates to defend the leadership party line. It will conversely, cause the Democrats to hoard their cash to play defense and cause them to triage their less senior members in swing seats.  Finally, since these folks are easily identified villains to the Right, there's the possibility to drop moneybombs in these places.

Here's my list:

Chuck Schumer

Schumer defeated an obscure GOP assemblyman badly in 2004 in what was a non-campaign. Since then he's been enbolden to play partisan bomb thrower and is one of the  happiest Democrats to lambaste "teabaggers" for the temerity to question Washington.  Schumer is probably one of the most anti-gun and pro-abortion politicians ever elected to office, and has treated Wall Street as an ATM for his campaign warchest. Needless to say this isn't quite the agenda every New Yorker applauds--his recent poll ratings have slipped.

Schumer is still a heavy favorite, but two things make this more than an exercise in wish fulfillment. First is Schumer' arrogance, which may remind voters of disgraced former Governor Eliot Spitzer. Second is the demographics of the off-year NY electorate, where Upstate casts a higher percentage of the vote--indeed, nearly half.

Larry Kudlow (whom I thought was still a CT resident) is thinking about this race. But has anyone thought that an upstater associated with the Tea Party--like Doug Hoffman--might send Chuck into orbit?   

Steny Hoyer

Hoyer is Nancy Pelosi's second in command. Unlike San Fran Nan, he actually represents some Republicans in his suburban Maryland district which is only D+11.   As it is in the Washington, DC media market it's not a cheap district to run in, but any misstep by Hoyer will be promptly reported by the national press.  Hoyer will have to explain his party's agenda in a district which contains many of the same sort of outer suburban communities that were Scott Brown strongholds in MA. Good luck, Steny.

Barney Frank

Chris Dodd is gone, but the other architect of the ruinous subprime mortgage bubble, Barney Frank, thinks he's going to coast to re-election. Perhaps he'd best look at the voting results in MA 4 as it appears his district was carried by Scott Brown.  MA 4 is a D+14 district but it is a gerrymandered mess which includes areaas far from Frank's base inside Route 128. These communities--even the blue collar ones--turned hard against the Democrats in the special election.

I'll explain in more detail, but the key to making this seat truly competitive is candidate recruitment and pushing aside a perennial candidate who simply doesn't "fit" this district in favor of one who could peel off a critical region from Frank.  

Henry Waxman

Henry Waxman is probably the one member of Congress most directly responsible for the decline of America's industrial vigor.  As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee he is single handedly responsible for pressing forward on a multifront regime of regulation and government edicts.   He also was foursquare for the government takeover of health care enbodied in the House's "public option" bill.

His district includes Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Malibu so we can be sure the entertainment industry will shell out to give him around. That said, money he gets can't go to Indiana or new Jersey.  His district also now includes large chunks of the San Fernando Valley where a political agenda based on middle class concerns might well receive a receptive response. 

It's pretty clear we would need a very libertarian minded candidate to get an audience here. That said, a "cool" Republican would draw attention to the party and draw attention away from older socially conservative white men in the Red States. And a credible campaign against Waxman--inagine Republican lawn signs on Brentwood hillsides--would be magnified in the national media.

I cna think of less notorious Democrats like New York's Gary Ackerman or CT's Rosa DeLauro who have baggage, atropried campaign skills and districts with appreciable Republican activity. But the bigger point here is to draw out the loudest and least  persuasive advocates for Democratic control of government.

The Democrats made sure they got Jesse Helms a tough race every cycle hoping for a meltdown. Now it's our turn.   

The RNC continues to bemoan the fact that it is having difficulty raising money in a manner that can approach what the DNC does, and what they continue to fail to grasp is that conservatives of tired of the RNC taking the donations they receive and funneling it into a select number of campaigns, normally incumbents, who no longer if they ever embodied conservative values. The rank and file conservative who used to be a Republican but today can just as well be classified as a Blue Dog Democrat, appears to have made the decision that sending money to the giant slush fund of the RNC is not the answer and in fact we are seeing more and more campaign contributions being targeted directly to certain candidates at all levels.

First off is this story of a candidate for governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, who is getting donations, and sizable ones at that from outside the state.

$100,000 James Barksdale, Ridgeland, Miss.; former CEO of Netscape

$50,000 Bruce Rauner, Winnetka, Ill.; chairman of GTCR Golden Rauner LLC., a private equity and venture capital firm

$50,000 Gary Heavin, Waco, Texas; CEO, Curves International

$25,000 Peter Coors, Golden, Colo.; chairman, Coors Brewing Co

These big influxes of cash were directed to a PAC called The Republicans Governors Association.

And then there is the case of William Russell, one of the slate of candidates from the Iraq Veterans for Congress, who is putting up a serious challenge to John Murtha in Pennyslvania (PA-12) this year. He is out raising Murtha in some categories by a margin of almost 6 to 1. There is no doubt the further in to the campaign cycle we get, that Murtha will get a huge infusion of cash from somewhere, because the liberals cannot afford to lose such an outspoken critic of the military who has managed to shape the rules of engagement that have been imposed onto our soldiers fighting the war, and a enemy sympathizer who has falsely charged service members with crimes forcing them to defend themselves in court rather then defending the American people on a battlefield. Did I mention that I really hate Murtha and I hope William Russell kick his butt?

So is this the future for Republican candidates? I think so, and the primary reason is because there is so much anger in conservative circles against the current crop of politicians wearing the Republican label, but who no longer support the conservative principles. I, and many like me, are tired of the Arlen Specters, Chuck Hagels and others who spend more time pandering to liberals who scream like babies, instead of swatting them on the backside like they deserve.

Carl Mumpower, running for congress in NC-11, has put his conservative principals front and center and made it a cornerstone of his campaign. The incumbent in this race is Heath Shuler (D). Look at the lack of PAC money for Mumpower to challenge Shuler.
Mumpower has started a campaign within the Republican candidates in NC to sign on to his pledge of conservative values, which has galvanized the conservatives in North Carolina, yet look at how far behind he is in funds compared to Heath. Now how is it a guy who appears to be a leader of the conservative movement in NC is not able to getting any national funds from the party that claims to represent conservative values?

For yet another example of where conservatives are supporting a candidate who is getting no support from any of the national Republican groups you need look no further then the race in the GA-13 district. David Scott is the Dem incumbent and Deborah Honeycutt is the Republican challenger. Take a look at the fundraising numbers and sources.
The Dem is getting all of his money from PAC's and Dr Honeycutt is getting the vast majority of hers from private donations. The national Republican PAC's refuse to battle for seats they consider unwinnable. The national Republican party has lost it's stomach for a fight.

So the Dems like to talk about grassroots operations, and while they have a bit more experience at such operations, it does appear that the conservatives are finally starting to get off their collective butts, and trying to get some candidates who represent them and their values and quit relying on any national group to do it. The RNC no longer speaks for the vast majority of Republicans, and instead just seem to be devoted to protecting the jobs of anybody currently in office instead of supporting candidates who epitomize conservative values.

My advice to everybody. Find candidates across the country who are challenging the Dems, who are running on conservative principles, and donate to their campaigns. I have just listed 3 congressional seats and one governorship that Republicans could take over from the Dems, in a year when everybody says the Republican brand is tainted so bad as to not be embraced, here are at least 4 examples of when it is done correctly, we can pose just as big a threat to the Dems as they pose to Repubs.