Talk Elections

From the WSJ (http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007668):

Describing his 1976 challenge to incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan wrote, "It was time to scale back the size of the federal government, reduce taxes and government intrusion in our lives, balance the budget, and return to the people the freedoms usurped from them by the bureaucrats."

Reagan helped define the mission of the Republican Party. By re-establishing limited government as the central principle of the GOP, he laid the groundwork for the political revolution that bears his name. Almost 30 years later, the Republican Party is at a similar defining moment. Once again, challengers to certain Republican incumbents are needed to help restore limited government to its rightful place at the center of the Republican agenda.

Today, the Club for Growth PAC will endorse Steve Laffey, the Republican Mayor of Cranston, R.I., in his primary challenge against Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Steve Laffey is a pro-growth, Reagan Republican. Sen. Chafee epitomizes the GOP's waning commitment to limited government and economic freedom.

Sen. Chafee has consistently opposed tax cuts. Citing the federal deficit, he opposed the Bush tax cuts that have generated our powerful economic expansion. But his concerns about deficits don't extend to government spending. Bills he has sponsored would add nearly a half-trillion dollars in new spending over 10 years. The National Taxpayers Union gave him a dismal 49% rating for his profligacy with taxpayer money. A close ally of organized labor, he opposes school choice, and just last month voted for a minimum-wage increase. A recent Boston Globe profile describes his ideology as "well-suited for a centrist Democrat."

Despite his liberal record, Sen. Chafee is warmly embraced by the Republican Party establishment which dutifully enforces an unprincipled, though ironclad, mutual-defense agreement that ignores ideology.

Steve Laffey makes a stark contrast. After an inspiring climb from rags to riches, he returned to his hometown to run for mayor and rescue the city of Cranston from impending insolvency. As mayor, Mr. Laffey ruthlessly attacked the mismanagement that had caused Cranston's problems. He cut costs, established financial controls, rooted out waste and took on bloated union contracts in the courts--as well as in the court of Rhode Island public opinion. Today, Cranston has recovered its investment-grade credit rating and the voters there have re-elected him twice. This in a city where only 14% of voters are Republicans!

As a senator, Mr. Laffey would cut wasteful spending, especially corporate welfare; make the Bush tax cuts permanent; expand international trade; reform insolvent entitlements and fix broken tort laws. In short, he's precisely the kind of pro-growth, limited-government Republican the Senate badly needs more of.

After 10 years of controlling Congress, Washington Republicans have an identity crisis. It was Republicans who gave us a farm bill that only a Soviet central planner could love; a campaign-finance reform bill that expands government's unconstitutional restrictions on speech; a prescription-drug entitlement program that Lyndon Johnson could only have dreamed of; and a transportation bill with more than 40-times as many pork projects it took to earn Reagan's veto. So, we ask a fair question: Is Reagan's vision of limited government--the fundamental principle that brought Republicans to power--still part of the Republican identity, or has it been abandoned in favor of the seductive power of controlling unlimited government?

The fate of two bills before Congress, and a few Republican primaries, might help to answer the question. After years of spending increases, Republicans are now struggling to pass--over the opposition of Sen. Chafee and other so-called moderates--a tiny, mostly symbolic, cut in the growth of future federal spending. And if that were not enough, the Chafee cabal is attempting to block a bill extending the very tax cuts that have given us economic expansion.
The party of Reagan has been reduced to this--which is why it's time for Laffey vs. Chafee, the first skirmish in a very important battle.

Mr. Toomey is president of the Club for Growth.

Here's hoping that Laffey is just as successful as Toomey was.

We should start some sort of a PAC to help Laffey defeat Chaffee -and then withdraw our financial support the minute Laffey wins the Republican nomination, giving it to whichever Democrat wins his party's nomination. 

You sick bastard...

Where do I sign up.  ;)

Hopefully there'll be some new polls out on this race soon.

You guys would prefer to see a sensible moderate with an independent streak and a conscience be replaced by a typical New England Democrat?

Call me a DINO or Republican Apologist, but I for one do not.  I would rather be in the minority with another Chafees in the Repulican party than be in the majority with a bunch of "New England Democrats".

Yes. 

Obviously the goal should be returning the Democrats to the majority in the Senate, which means defeating every Republican possible.

And I happen to think that some New England Democrats such as Chris Dodd, Jack Reed and Patrick Leahy are among the best Senators in Washington.

I don't know if it's legal to start a PAC with this purpose, though.  :(

That means having people like Bill Frist and Rick Santorum continuing to control the legislative agenda for our country.

Not if we have a (hopefully larger) bloc of Common Sense Republicans to join the Democrats in stopping them.

There are some technical problems ... any money already spent before the primary remains spent for Laffey.

In theory, that sounds okay but in reality the "Common Sense Republicans" will still vote with the Frist/Santorum the vast majority of the time.

And from what I've read of Sheldon Whitehouse, he seems like he would be a fine Senator.

Chafee is an ok senator, but at this point its all about numbers.  He caucuses with the republicans therefore he needs to go.

I don't know why "New England Democrats" are so vilified.  As someone eluded to Dodd, Leahy, Reed, and yes Kerry are a few of my favorite Senators. 

Ben Nelson consistently has higher ACU rankings than Chafee.  Though if Laffey were to win the primary, I would enthusiastically back the Democratic candidate.

Go Chafee.  And no, I'm not surprised by the partisanship of some of these Democrats here.

If he doesn't win but pulls a Toomey (scaring the incumbent almost to death) than I see this as a victory.

Good Bye, Rhode Island Senate seat.

Unfortunately, this is what it comes down to these days.  Chafee is one of my favorites in and of himself, but his party label helps to enable some bad things much larger than himself to be enacted.

Each to their own, I guess, but what does that really achieve?  Chafee is not likely to change his political outlook as a result of a damaging primary challenge.  It didn't really affect Specter in the end, unless you meant that it quite literally scared him almost to death.  But that wouldn't be fair.

It seems more like you just want them 'punished' for not toeing the party line.

I don't want someone who will just blindly vote the party line because I would never do that and it's obviously not the right thing to do. I want people that use my party to be punished. I want people who expect to be kissed up to for votes to be punished. Someone being a thorn in his side for a campaign is the least we can have if he's going to be a thorn in our's for six more years.

What about the non-Republicans who think Chafee is actually a good senator for the state?  I'm talking about the ones who don't care about his own party loyalty, or what conservatives think of 'mavericks' in their party.

I'm surprised you'd put the wellbeing of your party over the interests of the people of Rhode Island.

Well put.

It isn't a vote on who is better the RI Dem or the RI Republican both would be fine.  The question is who do the people of Rhode Island want controlling the senate?  Harry Reid or Bill Frist...

You keep telling me to do it with Bob Casey.  I've been saying I want Joe Hoeffel and you call me delusional yet you actually thought Pat Toomey had a good chance at winning the Senate seat.  I just thought of something- we realy do mirror each other  when it comes to politics.  You're growling at the Republican party for supporting Specter in 2004 and I'm growling over the Democratic support for Bob Casey in 2006.  You know if Toomey were to have won in 2004, the race leaned Hoeffel.  In that case, why were you so eager to support Toomey?  You also know with Bob Casey I'm selling a lot, if not all my social views for someone who agrees with me more economically than Santorum.  Now I know how you felt in 2004! 

Toomey would have beat Hoeffel.  Now let this be the final PA comment in this thread, for it is the word of the lord thy god.

Specter did not receive the 9%+ level of support from Democrats that Hoeffel would've needed to win. On top of that, Hoeffel ran the worst campaign since Ron Klink en route to being stomped. Toomey wouldn't have won by 11%, but I've crunched the numbers before, and Hoeffel couldn't have won without a brilliant campaign.

I would say it may have leaned Hoefell, but real close either way.  Reason being the Republicans who supported Tommey in the primaries still went ahead and voted for Specter.  However their would have been drastic differences in the vote total in the Philly brubs where Specter had won, Toomey would have been beat like a red headed step child.  Hoeffel would have also done much better in the Wilkes Baire & Scranton areas against Toomey than he did against Specter.  Also if Toomey did knock off Specter in the primary their may have wll been a backlash against Toomey for knocking off Specter from the moderates all across the state

Excellent point.  There are a lot of people who voted Specter who loathe Santorum.  Toomey by 11%????  Ehh, NO!  It would have been close and the Lehigh Valley would have been a battleground.

This action reminds me of the actions of those who want to oust Bob Casey, Jr. in favor of Chuck Pennachio.

A very apt comparison, although it makes yet another goddamn Pennsylvania reference!  >:(

;)

Okay, then you give me a better example where a party has the best candidate possible already running and they want to throw him out. :P

Paul Hackett vs. Sherrod Brown, Ohio Democratic primary next year. ;)


(Okay, so I'm exchanging a state that gets too much press around here for my own state instead.  Myeh.)

That's not really the same, as Brown jumped in on his own because he is an ass, not because there was a grassroots campaign to draft Brown.

ive lost respect for toomey.

It would have been a tossup. Toomey could have won that race. He was a tough candidate. Hoeffel is a joke.

The Lehigh Valley is Toomey country, hack. They'd vote for Specter but not the local guy that they sent to the House three times? Hoeffel would not be strong enough to put up a real fight there.

If it Hoeffel was a joke, then Toomey should win easily right?  But I agree it would have been a tossup and I'd have no idea who would win.  Toomey is more conservative than Hoeffel is liberal, but also the better candidate.

Because he is standing up for what his group believes in?

Hoeffel would have received a lot of help from the straight Dem ticket voters but the man is just a bad candidate. If Toomey would have beaten Specter he could have beaten Hoeffel.

Acctually, there was a drastic fall off of people who voted for Toomey, who either voted for Clymer (like me) or did not vote for Senate at all.  Just look at the exite polls.  Specter scored way better with Democrats than can be accounted for in the final results.  I would say Sepcter lost 30% of the Toomey vote, which is significant.

i have a high opinion of the club for growth.

but the group should believe in and fight for a republican majority.

a laffey nomination equals a democrat pickup. 

The group does fight for a GOP majority but at the same time they can't just abandon their fundamental beliefs.

phil, dont you righties understand that chafee would be better for you guys than some rhode island democrat.

youre too young to remember claiborne pell...lol

Shouldn't you, as a Club for Growth fan, understand that the group has to defend it's principles?

I understand that a Laffey win would mean a tough fight in the general and would take Chafee over the others but you have to understand that some of us like to defend what we hold close to us.

first of all, i dont think laffey is serious in his challenge.  he wants to be president of uri and is using this challenge to get the governor to give him the gig.

yes, i wish chafee wasnt so hostile to tax cuts.  but that is one of the few issues i disagree with him on.

Then why does this endorsement bother you so much? Maybe they realize the same thing and find no reason to go against their principles in a race they can't win anyway.

If Laffey wins the primary, it basically means a Ted Kennedy-John Kerry clone gets into the Senate from RI. 

Smart Republicans should support Chafee.

I'm not asking for some mayor to mount a challenge to Nelson in Nebraska.  Take what you can get.

it bothers me because this endorsement is a good example of 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'

by the way, i wish toomey would have run for governor.

No, it's a good example of "We're defending our principles and if you want to be a thorn in our side, we'll be a thorn in yours."


Part of me wishes that, too, but I am excited for 2010. He'll very likely be a candidate for the Senate again (unless Santorum loses next year and plans a Senate comeback for the same year).