To understand why Congressional Republicans are taking extreme bargaining positions that shut down the government and risk defaulting on debt, it's useful to look at how their voters have been defeating moderates and nominating crazy people in primaries. This makes Republican officeholders do the crazy things that the Tea Party likes, because they fear losing their primaries even more than they fear losing the general election. Fortunately, Democrats often beat the crazy people. Democrats have won about 7 Senate races in the last four years in which Republican voters rejected moderates who probably would've won. Here's a list:
- 2010, Colorado - Republicans nominate Ken Buck, who as District Attorney refused to prosecute a rapist who had confessed to police and to the victim. Buck claimed that the victim was just suffering from "buyers' remorse." They reject the more moderate and accomplished Jane Norton, a former Lieutenant Governor. Capable technocrat Michael Bennet defeats Buck by 1% and retains the seat.
- 2010, Delaware - Republicans nominate anti-masturbation crusader and evolution denier Christine O'Donnell instead of electable moderate Mike Castle. Chris Coons, who was expected to lose against Castle, wins easily against O'Donnell instead.
- 2010, Connecticut - Linda McMahon decides to spend some of her vast wrestling fortune on the Republican Senate nomination. She gets it instead of respected moderate former Congressman Rob Simmons. Richard Blumenthal crushes her in the general election.
- 2010, Nevada - With Harry Reid slamming Sue Lowden for her suggestion that health care could be paid for by the frontier-era method of chicken barter, Republicans pick the even more crazy Sharron Angle instead of Lowden or Danny Tarkanian. With 14% unemployment in the state, a generic corrupt Republican like Tarkanian probably would've beaten Reid. Angle is literally not ready for prime time -- her staff severely limit her contacts with the media so that she doesn't blow up her own campaign by being crazy on TV. Reid wins re-election by a solid 6% margin.
- 2012, Connecticut - Linda McMahon decides to spend more of her vast wrestling fortune on the Republican Senate nomination. She gets it instead of respected moderate former Congressman Chris Shays. Chris Murphy crushes her in the general election.
- 2012, Indiana - With strong Tea Party backing, Richard Mourdock unseats distinguished six-term Senator Richard Lugar, who would've cruised to re-election. Mourdock is a slight favorite for re-election until a debate in which he claims that pregnancies from rape are part of God's plan. With strong support from women voters, Mourdock is defeated and Joe Donnelly is elected instead.
2012, Missouri - Facing likely defeat at the hands of Sarah Steelman or John Brunner, Claire McCaskill runs an ad criticizing Todd Akin during the primary as the "true conservative" who might be "too conservative" for Missouri. The reverse psychology works on Republican voters, who nominate Akin. Akin infamously implies that women claiming to have gotten pregnant through rape actually wanted it to happen, because in a "legitimate rape" female biology can shut down the pregnancy. Voters recoil in horror and shut him down, electing McCaskill by a substantial margin.
A few observations:
- This is part of why many Senate Republicans hate Ted Cruz. He legitimizes extreme positions that they don't want to take, putting them at risk of losing primaries to challengers who adopt those positions. The Tea Party may give him the Republican presidential nomination because of it, and remove his colleagues from the Senate.
- In three of the above cases, male Republican candidates express callous views on issues related to rape. Fortunately, the voting public is appropriately outraged.
- If you want to move the Democratic Party significantly leftward on issues ranging from economics (I'd like to see a guaranteed basic income for all citizens) or civil liberties or foreign policy or really anything, primaries are where you have leverage. Third party candidacies in the general election work better for candidates in between the two parties -- Ross Perot got a lot more votes than Ralph Nader. But primaries really allow activists on the edges of the system to take over a party from the bottom up. Just be careful and try not to elect people too extreme to win the general election, as Republicans have done. But Democrats in states like California and Delaware can probably go some distance left from candidates like Feinstein and Carper without risking defeat.
Recent Comments