Good riddance? GOP relies on Specter-like recruits
By JOSH KRAUSHAAR | 5/7/09 4:17 AM EDT
politico.com
For many Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, the reaction to Sen. Arlen Specter’s party switch was unequivocal: good riddance.
Yet even as his jilted former party slams the door behind him, the GOP is quietly pursuing a 2010 strategy that relies heavily on candidates nearly identical to Specter. The party’s road to winning back a Senate majority, it seems, is paved with moderates whose records are sure to make conservatives blanch.
For the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s recruitment list for 2010 reads like a roster of some of the party’s best-known RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and squishes — the derisive terms applied to centrists by movement conservatives.
The party’s top choice for Florida’s open Senate seat is popular Gov. Charlie Crist, who raised eyebrows earlier this year with his vigorous advocacy of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package — he even went so far as to appear with Obama at a Florida rally in February. In Connecticut, the national GOP has lobbied former Rep. Rob Simmons — who holds a higher lifetime rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action group than Specter does — to challenge Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.
In Delaware, where there is widespread consensus that just one Republican — Rep. Michael Castle, the co-founder of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership — can win Joe Biden’s former seat, the push is on to get him to announce for the Senate. Castle, one of three Republicans who voted for all six bills on the Democrats’ “100 hour” agenda in 2007, was the only Republican standing alongside Obama when he signed an executive order in March allowing federal funds for stem cell research.
In the Midwest, there’s Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk, another leading centrist viewed as the GOP’s best hope of capturing a blue-state Senate seat — the one Obama vacated after he was elected president.
On the West Coast, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas is hoping to land self-proclaimed moderate businesswoman Carly Fiorina to run against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in a state that gave Obama 61 percent of the vote.
“I’m absolutely committed to recruiting candidates around the country that fit their states. Who would have thought we would be looking at states like Delaware, New York, Illinois and Connecticut for Republicans to run — and have a reasonably good shot at winning?” Cornyn told POLITICO. “It really is a recipe for permanent minority status and irrelevance if we don’t pay attention to the arithmetic and get back to a position so we can shape legislation.”
Specter himself might end up facing a Republican whose voting record will closely resemble his own. Amid speculation that national and state Republicans do not believe conservative former Rep. Pat Toomey can win statewide in Pennsylvania, two more moderates have surfaced as leading Senate prospects: Rep. Jim Gerlach and former Gov. Tom Ridge, whose chances of becoming John McCain’s running mate last year were hurt because of his support for abortion rights.
“Sen. Cornyn has done a great job with recruitment,” said Carl Forti, a Republican consultant who headed the National Republican Congressional Committee’s independent expenditure effort in 2006. “The ironic thing in the House and Senate is you need moderate candidates to win if you want to be successful. That’s why you currently see Pennsylvania Republicans looking for a moderate to take on Toomey, because of the belief that while Toomey is fine in a primary, he can’t win the general election because he’s too conservative. This will be an ongoing problem for the party.” |
