Santorum Down, Toomey Up

Lost in the election haze is some good news for tax-cutters: the Club for Growth had a decent night. Club candidates Bill Sali, Tim Walberg, Jim Jordan, Doug Lamborn, Michelle Bachmann and Adrian Smith all won their races, albeit narrowly, representing a healthy rightward shift in the shrunken GOP caucus. (Although Sali makes a lousy replacement for Gov.-elect Butch Otter.) The races the club lost - open swing seats, attempts to take over Democratic Senate seats - were never going to be won anyway. And the Republicans' expensive rearguard effort to defend Lincoln Chafee from a Club challenge looks like a major-league oops right now.

Here's hoping the Club's congressmen remember who brought them to the dance on leadership election day.

Comments

[Chris]

Are you the guy that wrote the story about Otter in the print edition? That was a good article for someone who's not a native.

Sali ain't no libertarian. That's for damn sure.

[Morat20]

I'm not sure how to read your second-to-last sentence: Are you actually implying a [i]more conservative[/i] Republican might have held Chafee's seat? Or that it was a waste of money to try to hold onto the seat at all?

[David Weigel]

Morat20 - Given that they lost it anyway, it was a waste of money and resources for them to fight off Laffey. If they'd sent some extra cash to Montana and Virginia instead, they might be holding the Senate right now.

[alwsdad]

Michelle Bachmann may be a tax cutter, but she's a nightmare on every social issue you could name. I'm reasonably certain libertarians (not to mention liberals, moderates, and, well, sane people everywhere) will not be her biggest fans.

[Thomas Paine\'s Goiter]

I think it's very likely that Toomey will defeat Casey in 2012.

[jimc285]

Lamborn ,like Bachmann, is no friend of any sane libertarian. He,s a creepy wing nut and the reason the Repubs lost big and will continue to do so.But it is Colorado Springs.

[Tallocaust]

That was a good article for someone who's not a native.
Agreed.

Last night, I was amazed at how close the numbers were between Sali and Grant (the Democratic candidate) in the first district, at least for awhile. I knew Sali wasn't popular, but still didn't think it would get that close. In the end, though, Idaho...well, voted like Idaho. But at least we'll now have one of the more libertarian governors in the country.

[creech]

Toomey beat Casey in 2012? Pennsylvania is
turning pretty blue, so I think not. Besides, he has the chance to take on Specter again in 2010 (should Specter be healthy enough to run.)

[Chris]

Tallocaust:

Yeah, no kidding. I checked the Canyon County results at about 10:30 and Sali and Grant were separated by two votes. My jaw literally dropped. Sali pulled it out in the end (as I expected he would) but Grant gave him a run for his money.

[James]

Michelle Bachmann is God's consolation prize for removing Katherine Harris from the national political scene. The woman is batshit crazy and is bound to have some kind of bizarre public meltdown once the awesome power of her new office sinks in.

Note that she now holds the seat vacated by Mark Kennedy, who traded the safest Republican seat in Minnesota for an utterly doomed and incompetent run against a popular and well-known moderate in the middle of an anti-Republican hurricane. Kennedy put up big numbers in his election two years ago in the most conservative district in the state and somehow managed to convince himself that this result could be extrapolated to Minneapolis. Sadly, no.

Kennedy is a prick, Bachmann is a loon, and the Minnesota Sixth is a lost cause for the Democrats (and libertarians, for that matter). The rise of Michelle Bachmann is probably the best we could hope for: a walking, jabbering parody of the Evangelical Right.

[Thomas Paine\'s Goiter]

Toomey beat Casey in 2012? Pennsylvania is
turning pretty blue, so I think not. Besides, he has the chance to take on Specter again in 2010 (should Specter be healthy enough to run.)

Pennsylvania swings back and forth. It will come back around the other side soon enough. It doesn't help that the republican candidates have been giant douches over the last...12? years?

[FatDrunkAndStupid]

I'm not sure PA goes back and forth anymore. The Northeast, and PA in particular, is dying. Whites are fleeing in large numbers to the South and West, and the mixture of the elderly, minorities, jews, and public employee union memebers that remain behind skew heavily Democratic. New Jersey has already passed the tipping point. PA is probably right on the cusp. Toomey would be better served staying on the national scene.