MD-01
After Gilchrest lost his bid for re-nomination, I noted that the Club for Growth’s efforts to defeat the moderate Republican had probably helped ensure that the seat would be won in November by the Democrats, and it is now quite possible that the Democratic candidate will win there. Andy Harris may come back from his small deficit from absentee voting, but the idea of purging a reliably electable moderate in a closely-divided district during a very poor election cycle for Republicans was asking for trouble. On the whole, in recent elections the only thing that the Club for Growth seems to be very good at growing is the Democratic majority in Congress.
Yeah, I’m on the other coast, but I would happily vote Republican for Congress (I suspect I must have voted R for Congress at some time before, probably when I lived in NorCal, but not since I’ve been in the district of B-1 Bob Dornan then Dana Rohrbacher) if I could have had Wayne Gilchrest on my ballot. I kind of wish he’d run as an independent “Gilchrest for the Eastern Shore” (note the order).
Eyeballing the vote counts by county, it looks like most of MD-1 went for McCain by a decent margin (maybe 55-60% overall).
Walter B. Jones, who beat off his primary challenge, rolled over his Democractic opponent, OTOH, so there is perhaps some hope for repentant warmongers.
[...] They never learn: [...]
“…in recent elections the only thing that the Club for Growth seems to be very good at growing is the Democratic majority in Congress”
Will the Ds will hold the Eastern Shore in ’10 w/o a Presidential race, George Bush, etc.; in other words will they hold this seat in a neutral year? I doubt it; this is a reliably Republican area. Which means CFG will have gotten rid of a moderate for a likely more fiscally conservative Congressman with a two-year Democratic interlude. This isn’t like Northern VA or something, where there has been a demographic shift; these folks are just disgruntled.
CFG took out Gilchrest and Schwarz in MI, and now the Democrats have two more seats; but to assume the Eastern Shore or south central rural Michigan won’t return to their normal patterns in a year that isn’t so stacked toward the Democrats is odd; these are borrowed seats. And if the GOPer who replaces these folks is more fiscally conservative than Schwarz or Gilchrest, respectively, then the CFG would have done it’s job. Sure, it took a few cycles, but that’s a risk you take running primaries against incumbents…
“Will the Ds will hold the Eastern Shore in ‘10 w/o a Presidential race, George Bush, etc.; in other words will they hold this seat in a neutral year? I doubt it; this is a reliably Republican area. Which means CFG will have gotten rid of a moderate for a likely more fiscally conservative Congressman with a two-year Democratic interlude.”
Yeah. And this approach has worked really well in places like New England or former “swing” districts like Macomb County, MI (birthplace of the Reagan Democrats) and Montgomery County, PA (suburban Philadelphia), right?
Another reliably Republican district has fallen in Maryland. Wayne Gilchrist may have been a moderate, but he still had the “R” after his name. He served his constituents reliably for two decades. He still voted with the party more than 60% of the time. Having survived the widespread Republican defeat in 2006 without much difficulty, Gilchrist probably would have done a better job against a relative newcomer like Frank Kratovil than that schmuck Andy Harris, who was too conservative for Maryland’s 1st district. The Eastern Shore ain’t exactly Dogpatch, you know…
I don’t know about you, Young Geezer, but I’d rather have 60% of a loaf than no loaf at all. Looking to 2010 does us no good at this point. The seat is gone. Two years is a political eternity.
Youth truly is wasted on the young. Sheesh.