Rumors of a possible Crist defection to run as an independent began a few days ago. Now, sources indicate it may be a done deal.
Two highly placed and independent sources, speaking strictly on background, tell me that Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent in the race for the U.S. Senate…
Another well-placed source tells me the reason several Crist campaign staffers left recently is because, being committed Republicans, they refused to take part in an independent Senate run by Crist. That’s not confirmed by an independent second source, but it does ring true.
Now, reports from anonymous sources are sometimes wrong, so I have stopped short of reporting a Crist independent run as a verifiable fact, even though I believe my sources are accurate.
Electorally he probably does have a slightly better shot in a three-way race than against Rubio in the primary, where polls show him currently getting creamed and losing more ground everyday. But he won’t get much Republican support, and likely will pull more Democratic voters. In other words, Rubio still wins.
My first thought upon hearing that he might do this was similar to that of Erick Erickson at RedState. The party establishment will try to cover their rear-ends by blaming this on conservatives, instead of putting blame where it belongs: on supporting and promoting the kind of opportunist who so can’t stand to lose a primary that he’d pack it up and leave at the first sign that he might have miscalculated.
Ultimately this confirms what conservatives have been saying about Crist. He is an opportunist snake that only came into office on Jeb Bush’s coattails, but has no real draw of his own. We don’t want him as our Florida senator under any label, so good riddance.
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Another Democrat is bowing out from the 2010 races. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, one of the few less liberal members of the party, has been popular in a state typically more favorable toward Republicans. This decision is a bit surprising, as the polls have not had him behind any of his possible Republican opponents. Without an incumbent with a lot of cash, and given the fact that Bayh was unusually popular as a Democrat in Indiana, it’s quite likely that today’s announcement has shifted the state from the leans Democrat to the leans Republican category.
The Democratic leadership cannot be happy.
Update: Mike Pence is reconsidering his decision not to run for the seat.
Update II: Pence again declines to enter the race.
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Who do you think is practicing which? Via Johnny Dollar:
Hat-tip: NewsBusters
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Granted, the GOP still has no power. But the unprecedented swiftness of the Obama/Pelosi collapse, as evidenced most recently by Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, makes recapturing the House in 2010 a real possibility. I wonder whether or not Republicans are ready for that.
Here’s what I mean. My question isn’t whether or not they’re ready to win, but whether they are ready to govern with principle. My worry is that Obama’s surprisingly fast collapse, due to his unprecedented overreaching, has not given the party bureaucracy the time necessary to properly internalize the reasons for their defeat. Obviously, I hope that concern proves to be unfounded, and that Republicans are able to recruit principled, small government conservatives to run, and win, in the next election.
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While I suspected that the Democrat leadership would put pedal to the metal, spooked members are preempting them and have pulled the emergency brake on Obamacare.
First, Senator Webb suggested there should be no shenanigans of trying to ram through a bill before Brown takes his seat from Kirk: “It would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
Then Barney Frank, of all people, chimes in: “If Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But Since Brown has won and the GOP now has 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some GOP Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think the country would be well served by the health care status quo. But our respect for Democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. I hope there will be a serious effort to change the senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of this process.”
Setting aside his call for dismantling the filibuster, that’s a remarkable statement and bad news for Democratic leadership.
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I’ve been watching the precincts come in, comparing them to Romney’s 5% victory in 2002, and I’m prepared to do what the media has so far not done: call it for Brown. The votes just aren’t there for Coakley.
Scott Brown has completed his remarkable come-back to win deep blue Massachusetts for the Republicans. Democrats no longer have 60 in the Senate, and their health care takeover is in jeopardy.
Here are two predictions: 1) Harry Reid, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi will try to ram it through anyway, using reconciliation and any other tricks they can think of if necessary and 2) it won’t matter because this election will scare the beejesus out of the blue dogs and the narrow coalition that passed it initially in the House will collapse.
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The left has for some time self-servingly wrung its hands about the state of the GOP as a supposed “regional” party. The basis for this claim was the defeat of northeastern liberals like Lincoln Chafee and the defection of others like Arlen Specter. This meme was always short on intelligent thought, and now Scott Brown has exploded it.
As if the election of Republican governors in Virginia and New Jersey weren’t enough, Scott Brown has surged to the position of favorite in the race to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. Deep Blue Massachusetts may just elect a Republican to end the Democrats’ filibuster proof hold on the Senate. How could a “regional” party like the GOP do this?
According to the learned wisdom of the liberal analysts, the party was just too fanatically conservative for the northeast. Yet it was liberals who kept losing there. The reality is that it is those very northeastern liberals who diluted the Republican brand by collaborating with Democrats to expand the size and scope of government.
Scott Brown may not be the strongest conservative, nor a standard bearer of the Tea Party movement, but he didn’t make a race of it in MA by running as a Rockefeller Republican, either. Instead, he ran as a fiscal conservative. That’s the key to winning in the northeast and everywhere else for Republicans. Don’t listen to the self-serving advice of the left. Some regional compromises are okay, but sticking to core principles is what will reinvigorate the Republican party, in New England as well as the country as a whole.
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President Obama, Vice President Biden and Martha Coakley have all decided that Scott Brown’s truck needs attacking. For a little background, here’s the ad that got it started:
Obama then made light of this in his campaign appearance:
Biden and Coakley have also attacked the truck. But Brown, once again, owned the issue with his response:
“Mr. President, unfortunately in this economy, not everybody can buy a truck,” Brown said in a statement. “My goal is to change that by cutting spending, lowering taxes and letting people keep more of their own money.”
Hat-tip: Gateway Pundit
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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee used this image in an ad trashing Scott Brown:
One could be forgiven for thinking, based on their demonization, that they will be delighted to learn that this particular center of greed and corruption has already been brought down.
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Scott Brown, in a surprisingly competitive battle for the Senate seat left open by Kennedy’s passing, gave the perfect answer to a silly liberal question during a recent debate. Watch:
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
