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Delaware Class Warfare

What does Codevilla’s book have to do with the Castle-O’Donnell fight and our friends at the WSJ and NRO? Uncomfortably, I think, plenty. ~Jeffrey Lord The Codevilla book is based on the long essay American Spectator ran earlier this summer. Codevilla’s essay didn’t interest me much when it came out, mostly because Codevilla distinguished himself […]

What does Codevilla’s book have to do with the Castle-O’Donnell fight and our friends at the WSJ and NRO? Uncomfortably, I think, plenty. ~Jeffrey Lord

The Codevilla book is based on the long essay American Spectator ran earlier this summer. Codevilla’s essay didn’t interest me much when it came out, mostly because Codevilla distinguished himself during most of this decade as a raving “super-hawkish” lunatic. Admittedly, I jumped to the conclusion that whatever he had to say wasn’t worth reading, and I don’t really trust someone so fanatically militaristic to be a reliable advocate for political decentralization here at home.

For his part, Lord has made some of the worst arguments of recent years. A few years back, he tried to tie opposition to the Iraq war to his endless obsession with liberal racism, and then last year was one of the most irrational critics of the Sotomayor nomination because of the same obsession, so I have a hard time taking either of them seriously. It is more than a little funny that Lord has become a champion of Codevilla’s recent work, since Lord’s anti-racist crusading makes for a slightly odd pairing with Codevilla’s obvious contempt for all other peoples of the world, but I am told that the “country class” is heterogeneous and hard to define. Lord’s impulse to make a largely irrelevant Delaware Senate primary race into a great moment of truth for all American conservatives doesn’t help matters.

As it happens, I sympathize with the desire to defeat Castle in the primary. If Republican primary voters in Delaware want a conservative nominee, they should vote for O’Donnell. Personally, I usually prefer supporting hopelessly outmatched underdogs and normally would rather vote for third-party candidates than accept the pragmatic argument of electability. Then again, I also don’t expect them to win.

Of course, it’s possible that Delaware voters don’t want a conservative candidate, which may help explain why Castle isn’t a conservative and why it is taken for granted that he is the most viable statewide candidate the Delaware GOP could field. As I have been saying all year, the main mistake Republicans have been making for the last two years is demanding candidates who show loyalty to a national agenda rather than addressing the interests of their constituents. That will work in Senate races in Utah or Alaska, but it won’t work in Delaware. O’Donnell enthusiasts should have no illusions about what they are trying to do. They are arguing that the GOP should throw away a virtually guaranteed pick-up of a Senate seat for a toss-up race that might result in a Democratic hold, and they are doing it on behalf of a fairly weak candidate. Naturally, more partisan outlets that are interested more in maximizing Republican gains are going to prefer Castle.

This primary fight in Delaware reminds me of the effort the Club for Growth launched to try to defeated Lincoln Chafee in the primary in Rhode Island. Everyone, including the Club for Growth, knew that the challenger Lackey would have no chance in a Rhode Island general election, but decided to fritter away resources there anyway to “send a message.” On the whole, the only message that was sent was that the Club for Growth was not very smart in choosing their battles. As it turned out, 2006 was such a bad year for Republicans that it didn’t matter whether Chafee was the nominee or not, but the primary challenge itself seemed certain to result either in a weakened nominee or an easy Democratic win in the fall.

Delaware is a different case. Even though this promises to be a good year for Republicans, the main reason why Delaware is a likely pick-up for the GOP is mainly because of the personal appeal and record of Castle. Take him out of the equation and suddenly the NRSC would have to work overtime to make it a close race. That potentially diverts resources away from other competitive races, and it could cause the national party to give up on Delaware entirely as the RGA has already given up on the hapless Colorado gubernatorial nominee.

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