incumbents – Moe Lane

RIP: ‘Republicans cannot defeat Democratic incumbent Senators.’

Mourners, omit flowers.

“Republicans cannot defeat Democratic incumbent Senators.” This was, in some ways, the single most obnoxious meme that Democrats promulgated in the last two, three election cycles, largely because it was based on an unusually facetious argument. Basically, the idea was that Democrats had a skill set and resources that made their incumbent Senators bulletproof; there was no way that a Republican should challenge one, so the best hope the GOP had was to wait until a Democrat died or retired or something. This was, of course, flaming nonsense on stilts, for three reasons:

The 2010 election. Blanche Lincoln and Russ Feingold both got defeated, the latter in a state that had looked (up to that point, at least) like it was getting steadily bluer and bluer. If Byron Dorgan and Evan Bayh hadn’t retired, they would have had the same problem.
Retirements in general, in fact. What the meme carefully doesn’t take into account are places like Nebraska, where Ben Nelson retired rather than lose; or Senators like Chris Dodd, who was more or less forced to retire in 2010 in order to save his Connecticut seat. And we might have gotten Virginia and Wisconsin in 2012 if Jim Webb and Herb Kohl had decided to fight it out, at that.
It was always just Senators, for some reason. The trick apparently didn’t work for incumbent Democratic governors, or statewide elected officials. And nobody ever stopped for a moment and asked themselves “Why is that?”

Continue reading RIP: ‘Republicans cannot defeat Democratic incumbent Senators.’

So, basically, it’s just the Right that upgrades its politicians? …Weird.

So I’m reading this Hot Air post about an Arkansas state legislator who lost a state senate primary over, essentially, Obamacare, and I was struck by something. Basically, it’s that you only hear these stories in relation to conservatives. If the Left is doing a comparable job of removing their own wobbly legislators and replacing them with solid liberals and progressives, I’m not hearing about it. Admittedly, I could just be missing examples, but: when’s the last time that progressives have toppled an incumbent Democrat in a federal race? How often do they do that?

I mean, thank God that the Left doesn’t, but you’d think that they’d get tired of almost never having the satisfaction of replacing an under-performing legislator.

Moe Lane

#rsrh The Hill declares DOOM for “Blame Bush.”

I kind of hope that the Obama campaign was still planning to use the argument that it was all George Bush’s fault, because: That. Well. Is. DRY.

Sparky.

Two-thirds of likely voters say the weak economy is Washington’s fault, and more blame President Obama than anybody else, according to a new poll for The Hill.

It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.

Continue reading #rsrh The Hill declares DOOM for “Blame Bush.”