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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.’

NRSC: Why aren’t Democratic Senators practicing what they preach on Equal Pay?

Yeah, I know.  Fine: replace ‘NRSC’ with ‘Moe Lane’ and pretend that I asked the original question.  Because I’d like to know the answer, too:

The NRSC pulled the official payroll records for Democrat Senator offices and calculated the average pay for men and women for the most recent 6 month period available. Here’s what we found:

· Mark Udall pays women 91 cents for every dollar that a man makes.
· Mary Landrieu pays women 88 cents for every dollar that a man makes.
· Mark Begich pays women 82 cents for every dollar that a man makes.
· Mark Warner pays women 75 cents for every dollar that a man makes.
· Gary Peters pays women 67 cents for every dollar that a man makes.

On average, these five Democrats on the ballot in battleground states pay women in their office 80 cents for every dollar made by a male employee.

Continue reading NRSC: Why aren’t Democratic Senators practicing what they preach on Equal Pay?

Democratic Senators *may* be starting to signal that healthcare.gov is doomed. #obamacare

I could not believe that Dianne Feinstein had said this, in response to Bob Schaffer’s pointing out that the President kept telling us that if we liked our plans, we could keep our plans:

Well, as I understand it, you can keep it up to the time — and I hope this is correct, but this is what I’ve been told — up to the time the bill was enacted, and after that, it’s a different story.  I think that part of it, if true, was never made clear.

…(bolding mine) but, yeah, she did:

Continue reading Democratic Senators *may* be starting to signal that healthcare.gov is doomed. #obamacare