Drumbeat

DRUMBEAT KEVIN DRUM ON POLITICS, POLICY, AND CATS

MOTHER JONES

November 6, 2009

THIS WEEK IN THE BLOGOSPHERE

Election Advice for the GOP: Pick Your Battles

This week's off-off-year election has been so overanalyzed that I'm reluctant to say anything more about it, but here goes anyway: I wonder if it spells the beginning of the end for purity-motivated primary challenges?

In 2004, conservative darling Pat Toomey tried to unseat incumbent Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate race. He failed, and the experience left Specter scarred enough that he eventually left the GOP and joined the Democratic Party. In 2006, liberal activists promoted Ned Lamont to take on Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, and they lost, too. Lieberman reacted by moving further and further right and is now threatening to help filibuster health care reform.

This year's big congressional race was similar, if a little more chaotic. In a special election in New York’s solidly Republican 23rd district, Sarah Palin parachuted in to endorse Doug Hoffman, a conservative who was challenging the more moderate Republican candidate, and as a result they both lost. Democrats won the seat for the first time in a century.

These challenges made a sort of sense: NY-23 is a conservative district, so why not try and run with the most conservative electable candidate? Ditto for liberals in Connecticut when they took on Lieberman. But both of these challenges, as well as Toomey's, ended up being disastrous for their parties. So why, then, are conservative activists trying to pick off moderate Republican Carly Fiorina in California, where she's running for the Senate against Barbara Boxer? Their candidate of choice is Orange County assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a rock-solid conservative who has exactly zero chance of winning a general election. Sure, it's practically a tradition for the California GOP to nominate ultra-conservative candidates for kamikaze runs in the fall, but even so this is purity activism gone wild.

So, a prediction: Conservatives are oddly elated by the fact that Hoffman almost won in NY-23, so they'll probably mount several more challenges like this next year. And most, if not all of them, will go down in flames. Picking your battles is key to this kind of primary challenge, and by this time next year even the most committed activists are finally going to figure that out.

POLITICS

Wake-Up Call for Dem Congressmen

If there's any lesson to be learned from last Tuesday's election, it's this: Independent voters are getting a little weary of endless political battles with no results. [READ MORE]

ECONOMICS

Risky Assets Rush: Here We Go Again

Now that the economy has stablized, people will be lining up to invest in risky assets. Bubble alert: If the Fed raises interest rates, the whole thing will come crashing down. [READ MORE]

MORE FROM MOJO

2010: Doomsday for the USA?

Forget 2012: KGB analyst Igor Panarin predicts the US will collapse next year—and some conservative activists think he may be on to something. Assuming the US can keep it together for another year or two, we turn toward more pressing questions, like, Is Sarah Palin truly willing to lead against well-established Republicans? Plus: Boehner calls the health care bill the "greatest threat to freedom that I have seen." Really?

CATS

Friday Cat Blogging: Meta Inkblot

This picture of Inkblot is life imitating art. Or is it art imitating life? Hard to say. [READ MORE]

MYSTERY GUEST CAT

Mystery Guest Cat #5: Rupert

Rupert, a strapping five-year-old, strongly supports a public option for health care for his kibble-givers. He loves staring out the window at birds, running madly from room to room, and perching in high places. Here he is in one of his favorite spots: the top of the refrigerator.

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