Georgia won’t be battleground in GOP civil war
For the GOP establishment, the lesson of the last two election cycles is clear: We can’t continue to let the party be hijacked by candidates and spokesmen from the far right. Not only have they cost the party a number of winnable Senate seats, they have tainted the party brand and contributed to its reputation as extremist.
Toward that end, Fox News is purging itself of the likes of Sarah Palin and Dick Morris. Karl Rove is forming a new SuperPAC, dedicated to ensuring that ultra-conservative tea-party candidates such as Todd Akin of Missouri, Richard Mourdock of Indiana, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada never make it through GOP primaries and onto the general-election ballot, where they have proved disasters.
That hasn’t set well with the GOP’s conservative tea-party wing, which insists that the party’s woes can be blamed on just the sort of moderation that Rove advocates. The dispute sets up a battle likely to determine the future course of the Republican Party, but where will that battle take place? Nationally, attention has begun to focus on Georgia and the Senate seat that becomes open in 2014.
(For examples, see the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and ABC News.)
At first blush, that makes sense, because we fit so many of the parameters of a perfect test case:
– The seat is open because a veteran Republican senator, Saxby Chambliss, declined to seek re-election after his efforts at budget compromise earned him the dreaded RINO tag.
– We have a conservative GOP base that tends to gravitate toward the most conservative candidate in the field, and if the tea-party movement has faded in other parts of the country, it remains a force to be reckoned with here in the Peach State. In other words, a Mourdock or Akin could win here.
– We are a red state — Mitt Romney won here by eight percentage points — but we are undergoing demographic changes that might, under perfect circumstances, allow a Democratic candidate to win a statewide race in 2014, as occurred in Missouri and Indiana.
– Most of all, we have Paul Broun.
The controversial, even cartoonish congressman from Georgia’s 10th District fits perfectly into the Akin-Mourdock mold. He has an avid following among the most extreme Georgia conservatives, and he also has a penchant for the bizarre — likening President Obama to Hitler, calling him a Marxist, describing evolution and the Big Bang theory as “lies straight from the pit of hell” — that would make him vulnerable in a Georgia general election.
So there you go: in Broun and Georgia, the GOP establishment has a perfect test case of its campaign to pull the party back from the brink and toward the center, right?
Wrong, and here’s why: That case requires you to believe that Broun is a realistic threat to win the GOP nomination in Georgia, and he is not. People are trying to cast him in a role that grossly exaggerates both his ability and appeal. Among other problems, he won’t be able to raise enough money to compete statewide, and he doesn’t have the statewide network to offset that deficiency.
Most important, Broun isn’t running against Chambliss. By the time it’s complete, the GOP primary field will be brim-full of candidates with impeccable conservative credentials but without Broun’s penchant for foolishness. Broun simply won’t have the ideological space to define himself as THE conservative in the race, only as the crazy one. By the time Georgia Republicans go to the polls, the congressman from the 10th will be more sideshow than threat, and Rove and his SuperPAC don’t need to do a single thing to make that happen.
– Jay Bookman
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314 comments Add your comment
indigo
February 7th, 2013
5:13 pm
Thomas Heyward Jr “what do they see”
Speaking for myself, I am pleased beyond words not to have grown up to be a simple tool con like you.
josef
February 7th, 2013
5:14 pm
Regnad Kcin
Good thing you didn’t go to Louisiana… your haid woul still be spinnin!
THE TOPIC
Last p.m. recycled…
indigo
February 7th, 2013
5:15 pm
Occupation – (but murder it is)
Muslim terrorists declared WAR on us on 9/11.
If killing them before they get a chance to kill any more of us is “murder”, then so be it.
I guess you must be a true pacifist.
josef
February 7th, 2013
5:15 pm
Kcin
BTW, what is “racial zeitgeist?”
Jay
February 7th, 2013
5:16 pm
BENGHAZI !!!!
(upstairs)
Joe Hussein Mama
February 7th, 2013
5:16 pm
DIA — “But, it’s ok to use drones to kill insurgents in, say, Afghanistan?”
Stay on point, please. What if the attack happened in, say, Paris? Would you be as cool with flying an AC-130 gunship down the Champs D’Elysees and destroying a few buildings, or would you act with some sense and let the HOST NATION do its job?
“GTFO? Maybe, that’s what we should do?”
Are you saying that you don’t have a coherent answer and that you simply want to punt the question?
JamVet
February 7th, 2013
5:18 pm
“Yea, people were angry about rising unemployemnt and a crappy economy…”
Among a whole boatload of other issues.
Including nearly 5,000 flag draped coffins…
td
February 7th, 2013
5:20 pm
indigo
February 7th, 2013
4:10 pm
JKL2 – 4:03
Don’t be bashful boy!!!
Come right out and say it!!
You want to go back to normal with a white man in the White House.
Nope. I want a CONSERVATIVE back in the White House. Be it a white man, white woman, Black man, Black woman (That one will never happen since 98 plus % are progressives/socialist), Hispanic man, Hispanic woman, Asian man or Asian woman.
Liberal Nightmare (and Cookmans worst nightmare)
February 7th, 2013
5:27 pm
The typical republican in Metro Atl: Professional degree, Lives OSOP, Church Going, Donates to charity, probably owns at least one gun, spends money and contributes to economy.
Typical Democrat: majority have no college education, pay less than 10 percent federal tax, do not donate to Charity, have received some sort of federal or state assistance.
Yep, those crazy republicans. As long as there are leaches there will be democrats.
Uh Huh....
February 7th, 2013
5:42 pm
@RB from Gwinnett
February 7th, 2013
5:08 pm
“The man left office with an approval rating of 22%. And only 18% among independents!”
Yea, people were angry about rising unemployemnt and a crappy economy and guess what…4 years later we still have unemployement higher than when Bush left, the economy still sucks, and for some damn unknown reason, everybody loves Obama.
Maybe the low information liberals would be a little more useful in the collective effort to improve things if they would get their “news” from sources other than “Weekend Update” and “The View”????
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Maybe the hate filled, angry CONS would be a little less angrier and less
hateful if they would get their “NEWS” from sources other than FAUX NEWS.
BTW, Your grissly mom (Sarah Palin) and your top con advisor Dick Morris
got the BOOT from FAUX NEWS.
What goes around comes around,
That’s what people say;
So, all the pain they caused
Will come back to THEM someday.
комиссар (Occupation)
February 7th, 2013
5:46 pm
skipper: “Al-Alwaki (sp?) needed a good killin’…………..”
Says who?
Decides who?
Uh Huh....I Pledge Alligance to the Liberal States of America
February 7th, 2013
5:49 pm
@Liberal Nightmare (and Cookmans worst nightmare)
February 7th, 2013
5:27 pm
The typical republican in Metro Atl: Professional degree, Lives OSOP, Church Going, Donates to charity, probably owns at least one gun, spends money and contributes to economy.
Typical Democrat: majority have no college education, pay less than 10 percent federal tax, do not donate to Charity, have received some sort of federal or state assistance.
Yep, those crazy republicans. As long as there are leaches there will be democrats.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep, we crazy liberals. As long as there are haters, fakers, hypocrites, liars,
schemers, tax dodgers, vote tamperers, thieves, there will be Republicans.
Stevie Ray..Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right..here I am...
February 8th, 2013
8:43 am
getalife
February 7th, 2013
1:52 pm
Please make up your mind. Is the country destroyed or is everything wonderful..
Bill Orvis White
February 8th, 2013
12:27 pm
I met the honorable Paul Broun during a Christian retreat back in the early ’90s right after the honorable President George H.W. Bush unfortunately lost his re-election campaign. We were all gathered around a campfire late at night when the honorable future congressman from Georgia told us about the impending doom that would be inflicted upon the nation. I really think it was that night that Mr. Broun had an epiphany that He would be one of many conservative Christians who would become foot soldiers to save the nation from debauchery. Here we are over 20 years later and Mr. Broun is about to become the new junior U.S. senator from Georgia. I’m proud of Rep. Broun and you can bet on it, that I will be writing a check to Him very soon.
Amen,
Bill