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    The Circular Firing Squad Next Time

    I guess I wasn't the only person who woke up this morning focusing on the next election cycle. Erick Erickson of Red State opened discussion of which Republican Senators to challenge in the 2012 primaries at 8 am this morning. (h/t DougJ) Erickson's post is titled "Potential Tea Party Targets for 2012."

    Which Republican Senators make his initial list? All of them.

    Here is a list of potential targets for primaries — these are all of the Senate Republicans up for re-election in 2012:

    John Barasso (WY)
    Scott Brown (MA)
    Bob Corker (TN)
    John Ensign (NV)
    Orrin Hatch (UT)
    Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
    Jon Kyl (AZ)
    Richard Lugar (IN)
    Olympia Snowe (ME)
    Roger Wicker (MS)

    Note that this is just the list of Senate Republicans running. Not all will be targets, but it will be from these men and women that the tea party movement starts looking for targets.

    Now, before you all get giddy about Olympia Snowe, I would respectfully suggest that Corker, Hatch, Hutchison, Lugar, and Wicker make better targets as we have a much greater certainty of both beating them in primaries and also winning the general election.

    Wicker and Corker in particular make exciting prospects for the tea party movement.

    That's just amazing strategery there. The list itself doesn't look terribly appetizing from the Democratic viewpoint: the Republicans only have to defend 10 of their 47 seats next cycle, and most of the seats they'll be defending are in what is currently deep red territory, forcing the Democrats to expand their map in a big way if they're going to play offense. Brown is certainly someone the Democrats will want to challenge, and if he looks vulnerable I'd expect a strong challenger.

    That part of the Republican base, or at least the right-wing-pundit base, is so deeply committed to intramural bloodletting is startling. It certainly suggests that Republican incumbents will feel a genuine pressure not to compromise with the Democrats. That's not good if you're looking for the country to actually be, you know, governed. It also suggests that the national Republicans may still be in for a bumpy ride. I've never seen the circular firing squad forming up the day after a victory before.

    Erickson might try to keep the Tea Party faithful from going after Snowe or Brown, but it's not as if they take marching orders from anyone. If the "practical" Tea Party types are going after Bob Corker and Roger Wicker, and simply hoping that their fellows in the movement will have the tactical sense to leave Snowe and Brown alone ... that doesn't seem likely.

    Of course, both Erickson and I are blogging as if the political environment in early 2012 will be unchanged from the political environment today, which is never a safe bet. But I certainly expect the Tea Party elements of the GOP to be angered and disappointed by the conduct of the House and Senate, no matter what happens. (They will be angry if Boehner and McConnell eventually come around to some kind of deal with Obama and Reid. But they will also be angry if the GOP adopts the most extremist tactics possible, because short of a two-thirds supermajority in both houses, those tactics will fail, and the Tea Party crowd will look for RINO scapegoats when they do.) And part of me wonders what happens in states where senatorial, gubernatorial, and House primaries happen on the same day that presidential primaries do ... that's a lot of political passion to stir into the mix.

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    A random thought on reading this - I don't know who is more retarded, the Dem Liberals or the GOP tea party. The tea party don't have a clue WHAT they want, but they sure know how to keep the pressure on GOP reps and senators. Liberals have a fine set of policy aims, and again and again insist on shooting themselves in the foot, oh so careful not to rock the boat, somehow imagining that, if they in any way threaten incumbent centrist corporate shills, everything will fall apart. What Erickson is proposing seems eminently pragmatic, keeping a foot on the neck of anyone who even thinks of getting out of line.

    I wonder what would have happened if liberals in '09 had raised a credible threat of serious primary challenges to all and every rep and senator who didn't come out in favor of

    1. a public option

    2. a tax on prop trading on Wall Street.

    I wonder what would happen if liberals did that now. Like, instead of crying in their beer all week...


    Wait. There's BEER?

    I knew Destor was holding out.


    I wonder what would have happened if liberals in '09 had raised a credible threat of serious primary challenges to all and every rep and senator who didn't come out in favor of

    1. a public option

    2. a tax on prop trading on Wall Street.

    It's a free country.  I think one of the things "liberals" are dealing with is that they are no longer the activist force they imagine that once were (if they were ever that).  In other words, what you wonder what might have happened never happened because...it didn't. 

    So here here we are...the tea party with its wins and its losses is an entity in the collective consciousness.  What is stopping the Progressive Party from being the same.  Like I said, it's a free country.  And that means there are so many microbrews to choose from.


    There were two times I am aware of that liberals were activist. During the hey days of the unions and the Vietnam War.


    And one looks at the power of the labor unions and peace activists in this country and think?


    The labor unions have been decimated and the peace activists don't give a wet slap because their buts are no longer in jeopardy.


    Earth: Come for the Climate, Stay to Learn Something!


    "It's a free country." - it's funny how that phrase used to be ... well... true. Enjoy your beer, AT.


    funny thing....it still is.  Make mine a hefewiezen with a lemon.


    Wait a minute. You are giving me whiplash. Just last week liberals were being excoriated for disloyalty, mush-headedness, and general treason for not being sufficiently subservient and *gasp* throwing away money on primary challenges, most notably (but not exclusively) the challenge of Blanche Lincoln. Now they are being trashed for not making enough waves?

    Or are you talking about measured centrists who call themselves liberal but can't imagine doing anything but wander in lock-step with the Democratic corporate machine? As best I can tell, those people abandoned the label of liberal when they decided to make trashing "the left" a full time vocation. Don't get me wrong, it's not like a "they should be banished from calling themselves liberal" thing, just for clarity which subspecies of Democrat we're talking about here.

     


    Whiplash? dude, who do you think you're talking to? I'm the guy with the full-time centrist ankle-biter trailing around after me on the threads 24/7, and you're questioning my cred as a lefty...? Get back to me when they decide you're worthy of siccing one of their corporatist shitzus on you...

    ;0)

    Anyhow, kudos on your Harry Reid prognosticating, kgb! Nicely done!


    Woah. I guess I didn't put that well. I was just wondering which faction you were talking about ... I haven't heard the term "liberal" used in Democratic circles as anything but a pejorative for those criticizing Obama for quite some time. It was just strange to see in context.

    I wasn't making an assessment about your personal cred as anything, just wondering who you were talking about in the comment.

    Thanks for the kudos, not sure one race makes me an accurate prognosticator or anything but DAMN I've never been happier to be right about something!


    Good point. Brings back the good ol' GOP unity days of late 2008, with Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage calling John McCain all kinds of names  (hey, did anyone ever find out who they voted for for president?) and Eric Cantor's House group rebelling against the bailout (with plenty of Pelosi bashiing added in front of the TV cameras for maximum political effect,) in disagreement with their sitting president, their own leadership and their presidential candidate.


     

     


    That Lugar is considered open to a challenge just shows how crazy things have become.


    Hasn't Lugar already announced his retirement? 


    The name that struck me most was Orrin Hatch. He was one of the original "New Right" conservative insurgents back in the 1970s. His movement was so successful that now he has become a target for purging. Wow.


    "my god what have we unleashed"


    I think this ties in very well with your book, G. I'm still only about a third of the way through, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the walk down crazy memory lane through my childhood and on to my political awakening and college years. I remember thinking back then that Regan and his friends were forming alliances with some fairly irrational, one-issue people and that eventually those people would be the ones with the power in the alliance while the ones who courted them would find themselves on the outside looking in. Welcome to Ronald Regan's (read: Sarah Palin's) America. 


    American Dreamer added this to his/her "My Adopted Progressive" post regarding 30-year GOP House incumbent Frank Wolf (who won over AD's adopted progressive Jeff Barnett):

    Just in the past couple of days, in addition to the "RetireFrankWolf.com" signs (source unknown to me) that popped up here and there, there were also some "Tea Party Express Frank Wolf" signs just in the last 24 hours.  Possible presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich lives in our town and he has been courting the Tea Party crowd.  I thought it was a poorly designed sign because you had to look at the smaller print to be able to tell the folks who put it up evidently wanted Wolf to lose.  Which of course may be the point--they didn't want him to lose, not really. 

    I'm not at all sure there are any Tea Party people in this town other than Gingrich.  It would be too embarrassing for many who live in this relatively uptight, buttoned-up bedroom community to associate themselves with the Beck and Palin crowd.  My best guess is that Gingrich or some other Tea Party sympathizing muckety-muck had these put up as a shot across the bow to Wolf.  Figuring Wolf was going to win re-election easily, someone wanted him to know that his votes in the next Congress are being watched by others besides Dems.  He's not a Tea Party kind of guy.  After 30 sleepy years in Congress I don't think he has enough passion in him to be one.


    It seems this firing squad has been warily circling each other since before the primaries. Small consolation to some perhaps, but I say break out the popcorn and enjoy ... it's likely to get pretty good. If I'm reading it right, the establishment guys are going to want to go in for the kill ASAP to allow as much distance between the battle and the next election as possible.

    A good sign to look for would be a big gun going after Rush ... or alternatively Rush sitting quitely in the face of attacks on Palin (depending on where he decides his bread is buttered). Bachmann's run for the leadership is another place to watch for fireworks and to get an indicator of where the wackos are going to settle in to the GOP heiarchy.

     


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