GOP Under Mounting Pressure From Underdogs' Senate Bids

Wall Street Journal:

Underdogs trying to ride a wave of anti-establishment fervor are mounting challenges to the Republican Party's hand-picked Senate candidates in several states.

The trend suggests that conservative surges in a New York House race and a Senate primary in Florida were not isolated incidents and pose a dilemma for the GOP. Party leaders have stopped endorsing candidates, and in some cases establishment candidates have shifted to the right.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[oceanofconsciousness]

Palin's going to be busy endorsing all the far right candidates.

[JeanPaulSatire]

If the GOP is "under mounting pressure" does that mean they're about to get scr€wed?

[JeanPaulSatire]

"GOP Being Forced Rightward" reads the hedlion [intentional misspelling to get past the €ensors] on the Politics main page.

"Forced"?? Really? Someone has put a metaphorical gun to the party's metaphorical head and said "move to the right, or else!" or something similarly dire and dramatic?

I get it that those who write those things seek to get eyeballs on pages, but must you use the NY Post and the National Enquirer as your models?

[VegasWolf]

Jeez, how much further right can the crazies get?

[blizb]

The far right is not a majority.

It is wrong to shift to a minority point of view. What is to be gained??

No matter how loud or how crazy these people are everybody needs to quit panicking and realize they are a minority.

They can't help Republicans in the long run. The only place it will help any Republican is in a local district where they may have influence or a large number in a small area. Get real.

[Fabienne]

If they move any further to the right, they'll fall off the edge of their flat earth.

[aseasonforreason]

If the RNC chooses to align with the radical religious right instead of distinguish themselves as credible, that's up to them. Just don't drag the Democrats further right along with it, thank you very much.

Bill Maher nailed it when he said: “The bigger problem is that over the last 30 years the Democrat party has moved to the right and the Republican party has moved into a mental hospital.”

Need evidence? Well... look at the 1973 healthcare reform debate. Look carefully at what Nixon offered as a counter-proposal to the Kennedy bill. Then compare that bill to the bill the Democrats just passed in the house.

We can talk about fiscal conservatism all we want. The record is fairly clear about which presidents and parties actually managed budgets and deficits better.

Anything left of the Republican platform is now immediately labeled as socialistic. Saying it over and over again doesn't make it true.

Truthiness abounds. And, in at least one political camp over there on the right, it is actually endorsed as viable strategy. There are those that consider politics in the US a religious war to remake the country to conform to (selected) Christian doctrine. Under those Reconstructionism principles, "lying, deception, and stealth are considered legitimate tactics and even encouraged" (Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah). I recommend the book for anyone interested the question Blumenthal poses in the preface: How did a party once known for its "big tent" philosophy become a one-ring circus?

[Paulo1]

Misleading: there is no "force". They are running to the extreme lunatic fringe willingly and in droves.

Scary problem is that as the Republicans marginalize themselves to the Right, Obama and Co. are driving the Progressives into not so silent opposition. If the Progressives stay home in 2010 and the Republican wacko's solidify their base we could be looking at an extremely militant wave of Republicans coming to Congress in 2010. An unholy effect of Palin/Obama missteps combined.

[oonamanoona]

That's too much of an alarmist view. Progressives are wise enough not to sit on their hands when they know they have to vote against these wacko candidates should it come to that. Gotta have a little faith.

[xypher0725]

And yet another reason why there won't be a Republican takeover in 2010.

[Tim303]

Release your inner psychopath, guys. You are being watched.

[ohiomark]

The Democrat Party has drifted to the left over the years and If JFK were alive he would be a Republican.

The GOP needs to drift to the right. That was the only time in recent history that they had landslide victories. We just witnessed what being "moderate" got them last year.

[cef911f1]

Sorry, but being moderate is not what cost the GOP the election last year.

Four major issues: anti-Bush sentiment, McCain too old, an energized Democratic base and an idi0t for a GOP VP candidate (particularly worrisome due to the second reason).

To win, it requires the independents. Moving to the extreme right (or left for that matter) will not bring them onboard.

But please keep echoing that "more right" sentiment. It only helps us.

[bill456]

...thank you, Reps being moderate is why Dems didn't win by a landslide.­...If Reps believe they need to move more right it will make it will make it easier for Dems to stay in power in 2010....

GOP intolerance toward everybody finally reached levels where they cant tolerate each other....i­t was just a amattter of time...

[Cambridge9]

The 'Democrat' party is better know as the Democratic party.

Or maybe we should begin calling the Republican Party the 'Republic' Party.

The word Democrat is a noun (name) - democratic is an adjective (descriptive).

Republic is a noun - republican is an adjective.

[bill456]

....thank you...just another example of REPs ignorance and arrogance.­..

[mmahamngttia]

What is the difference betwee what the far right Republicans are doing vesrus what the far left is doing to Blue Dog Democrats?

[winningticket]

Is that a riddle? What's the punch line?

[blukazoo]

The GOP is being "forced" to the right? No, they willingly goose-step in that direction without anyone's help.

[S1m0n]

Why is that man orange?

[Tim303]

It's the content of his character that weirds me out...but for the record it's a tribute to Böhner.

[S1m0n]

Maybe he was dressing up as a jack-o-lanthorn for halloween.

[anothervoice]

...a Republican thing - you wouldn't understand. (Me either, for that matter.)

[LittleMittens]

Wow, the self implosion of the right began much faster than we thought. The RNC is so flustered by this new division they actaully stopped funding the candidates they DO want! I guess courting the extremists really DIDN'T work for you

[expired]

We deserve an up or down vote.

http://boldprogressives.org/majorityvote/p-gwa-1?gclid=CI-1ncychp4CFQjyDAodJV9Fqg

[expired]

Dear MoveOn member,

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