Liberty and Justice for All!

Seems a Sleestak won the PA Democratic Primary.

How will he get anything done with that hissing sound?

What is that you say? Sestak? OHHHHHH! My bad!

Good luck Mr. Sestak! I hope you nail the Club for Growth candidate Toomey to the wall.

Congrats are also in order to  the Democrat in PA 12. Congrats Mark Critz. Republican Tim Burns will be challenging the then incumbent Mark Critz in the fall. (And yes, Critz is pro-2nd amendment and pro-life. I would rather a moderate Democrat who can win and who will work with the Democratic party most of the time then someone who is a member of the Party of NO, the GOP, who will never reach across the aisle to work with the Democrats).

Say what?

This first thing you might wonder is why I am endorsing a race in NY-23. Then, once you see where Doug Hoffman is on the political spectrum and who he is being endorsed by, you might wonder why on earth I am also endorsing him to win. The first thing I would tell you is to go read this previous post of mine and you might get a clearer picture.

Well, just in case you haven’t figured out the method to my madness, here is why I would love to see Hoffman win. The first reason is that this is a Republican seat and a typically safe one. The political climate of Congress wont change if he wins. So there is no real loss to the Democrats and their desires to reform healthcare or pass any other part of their agenda.

So what does a Hoffman victory do? Well, it emboldens the “ideological purity” wing of the GOP and the Club for Growth into thinking that this kind of strategy will work on a larger scale. They will focus much time and money and effort trying to get more ideologically pure candidates on the ballot. When they do this in typically conservative districts it wont really matter, as they will stay conservative. However, when they try this in more moderate areas, it will split the conservative ticket up or drive the moderates and independents to the Democratic side. The GOP will continue to fall apart and it will all be because of ideological purity.

So go Hoffman! Give those Republicans the false hope they are looking for. Your campaign could be the last straw in the undoing of the GOP.

The departure of Arlen Specter from the GOP to “greener pastures” has caused the Club for Growth to release this statement.

Senator Specter has confirmed what we already knew - he’s a liberal devoted to more spending, more bailouts, and less economic freedom. Thanks to him, Democrats will now be able to steamroll their big government agenda through the Senate.

Now, the Club for Growth is just being silly. They had already endorsed Pat Toomey before the defection. Why would anyone be shocked over that after 200,000 likely Specter supporters became Democrats last year. Why wouldn’t he follow his base?

But this exposes a rising problem in the Republican Party. More and more they are trying to obtain “party purity”. So called RINO like Arlen Specter are challenged by extreme right wingers like Pat Toomey. Money is throw into bitter primary races. One of two things then happen. Either the moderate wins and is left with no money for the general election or the extremist wins and regardless of money they lose in the general election because the independent voters support the less extreme Democrat who runs. So each time the Club for Growth “wins” in the primary, they lose the Republicans more and more seats.

So how does this relate to the Democratic Party and Louisiana? Well, there are such ideological purists within the Democratic Party as well. For example, there are Democrats who oppose Landrieu for not being “ideologically pure” as well.  They would rather have someone who walks in lock step behind the party without question. However, the Specter defection and the actions of the Club for Growth should be proof to these “purists” that by opposing free thinking moderates who mostly agree with your party, that you wind up cutting your nose off to spite your face in the general election. What good is it to have a “pure” candidate if that candidate cannot win in the general election? Isn’t it better to have someone who agrees with you 75% of the time in office than someone who agrees with you 100% of the time lose an election? I hope the Democratic Party purists learn their lesson here. Do not make the same mistakes that the Republican Party is currently making.