Republicans nationally have a lot to crow about after their big Election Day victories, but here in Washington state… not so much.
In what was arguably the most pro-Republican/anti-Democratic political climate since 1994, WA GOPers only managed to pick up three, maybe four seats in the state Senate, all of them against freshman incumbents in traditionally Republican-leaning districts the Dems had just recently captured during the Big Blue Wave of 2006. In the state House, Republican’s did manage to knock off a couple long term incumbents, but still only captured four or five seats, barely eating into the Dems’ huge majority.
But as disappointed as over-exuberant R’s might be by their candidates’ underperformance in in the Legislature, where Dems still firmly control both houses, their party’s performance at the top of the ticket was downright dismal. Once the dust has settled and the final votes are tallied, Democratic incumbent US Sen. Patty Murray will have defeated three-time Republican loser Dino Rossi by a nearly five point margin, while for all their talk of a 1994-like wave, the Republicans’ only US House pickup will be an open seat in WA-03… a seat the Dems were almost certainly going to lose in 2012, after it’s inevitably redrawn as a strongly Republican-leaning district.
In fact, the biggest upset of the election season went against Republicans in the putatively nonpartisan State Supreme Court race, where unofficial Democratic favorite Charlie Wiggins defeated unofficial Republican favorite Richard Sanders in a rare unseating of an incumbent justice.
All in all, considering the circumstances and the expectations, not a bad election year at all for Washington Dems. Which means it wasn’t all that good an election for Washington State Republican Party chair Luke Esser, who as a result, now faces a very serious challenger from former KVI talk radio host Kirby Wilbur.
Yeah, I know, Esser is Rob McKenna’s political altar boy, and it seems unlikely the Republican establishment would want to cross McKenna by ousting Esser just as the two were preparing to launch McKenna’s 2012 gubernatorial campaign. But with the rise of Clint Didier and the “Tea Party” movement, it’s not at all clear that the Republican establishment is still in firm control of the Republican Party.
See, the problem for Esser is, even the Republican Party is somewhat small “d” democratic when it comes to electing a chair, and if the teahadists have managed to take over enough local committees, he could be in for a real fight, especially against a well known opponent like Wilbur, who has long been active in party affairs, yet convincingly manages to strike that tone of ideological purity the teabaggers demand.
And it’s not like the WSRP doesn’t have a history of punishing its chair for disappointing results at the polls. Just ask Chris Vance and Diane Tebelius.
So if Esser isn’t already looking over his shoulder, he should.
You mean that Clint Didier that corralled 12.6% of the vote in the primary? Not a very formidable “movement”.
I think Dwight Pelz should put Dino Rossi at the top of his Christmas list. It was the close Senate race that bolstered turnout for the Democrats.
Ironically, the Republicans would have been better of with Didier. I’ve talked to enough voters to know there was a sizable, and very enthusiastic, anti-Rossi vote that turned out this election.
P.S. Not to diminish Pelz’s success. He deserves a pat on the back for how well the Dem’s fared, especially at the Federal level.
It is our plan to have Sue Hutchinson as the next Washington State Republican Party chair. With God telling her what to do, what could possibly go wrong?
Kirby Wilbur? I’m sure he’ll be as successful at running the state GOP as his fellow KKKVI alumnus John Carlson was in his gubernatorial quest.
The Republicans aren’t all that democratic in selecting their state party chair, and the Democrats fall a bit short of being democratic as well.
The Republican state committee consists of three people from each county.
The Democratic state committee consists of two people from each county, plus two people from each legislative district.
If we had used even the Democratic Party process to elect statewide officials — some sort of “electoral college” (instead of the popular vote), Dino Rossi would have convincingly won all of his three statewide races.
MarkS @ 5
Hate talk 570 is no more!
RepubliCorps @ 4,
They can’t make Suzy the party chair because:
A: you actually need to know what you’re doing as a party chair and
B: that would leave them without a big name to get clobbered by Cantwell in 2012
The WSRP should save time and money and replace Esser as the chair with one bought at Costco ….. for all the good it does them.
Kirbys cost a lot and don’t deliver what is promised, although they do suck.
Well, the dumber the WSRP chair is, the happier we’ll all be.
That about sums it up.
So what if they throw out Esser? He’s just another boxcar on a passing train.
@1) Koster and Herrera demonstrated that the Tea Party is very much alive in WA and will be a major factor in Republican internal politics. Didier was DOA as soon as his piggishness at the federal farm subsidy trough became public knowledge. Besides there was nothing about Rossi for the teapartiers not to like. If Esser is dumped it will complicate life for McKenna, who comes across to the tea party mentality as a little King County weenie. Fortunately, as Chris Vance has correctly postulated, those that can be nominated can’t be elected in statewide races.
If being a narrow-minded prick is the main qualification for the post, I don’t think they could find anyone better equipped than Luke Esser.
I think Didier got a vote for every two yard signs that were put up for him.
I think that he also got votes from every ex-football player he was on a team with, one of his grade school teachers and his immediate family.
12.6% in a primary, against perennial loser Rossi, woohoo!
What a “movement”!
correctnotright @14,
Don’t confuse voters for party activists.
@8,
There you go again, thinking intelligent again. That just won’t work with the
RepublicanTea Party. Look how far we got with the real estate foreclosure guy. He would have won if he’d followed our advice and told everyone God talks to him. All the Tea Party folk would have fallen over themselves getting into line. Suzie is a natural.He wasn’t THAT piggish in my opinion.
But just like almost all right wingers he was a raging hypocrite and a blithering idiot.
re 17: … and a dithering nincompoop, as well.
Look at PCO filings — they elect the people who elcet the chair. In Snohomish County I saw at least 50% to maybe 100% more PCO filings on the repbulician side mostly tea party types.
@12, 14
The Tea Party in WA is just another regurgitation of of the same old far right in WA. They’ll pickup a few seats here and there, make a little noise, play the victim, but never hold much in the way of real power.
@12 The whole tea party movement represents the GOP establishment losing control over their minions. Don’t look now, but the GOPers have a revolution on their hands. These people are bolsheviks (small “b”). The vaunted GOP internal discipline is history. They’re riding a whale.
@20,21
I’m going with Roger’s version on this.
Roger, it depends on what you’d consider ‘minions’. Are they the Teepers themselves, or those bankrolling them?
Does it matter if they have failed to develop and move up their candidates?
24
Sure, it matters. But, don’t tell them that.
Goldy, your last point confuses me. I was re-elected by wide margins after the 2002 and 2004 elections, not “punished.”
The real question come 2012 is who’s, going to replace Norm Dicks?
Oops, wrong thread.
@21 Roger, there are those who would strongly disagree, and venture that the whole “Tea Party” phenomenon is just the grandest case to date of Rovian “Astroturfing”, and certainly the most generously bankrolled by right-wing business interests. The truth should become evident as the new Congress is installed. Look for all those supposed new “mavericks” to fall in lock step behind Boehner, pick handles in hand.
@27 Norm Dicks.
The real question, of course is….Does Luke Esser still fuck pigs?
(Somebody had to say it.)
@30
That’s what I’m afraid of.
We’ve moved that chat over here:
http://horsesass.org/?p=31156&.....nt-1042698
@23 “Minions” is a deliberately sloppy and vague term. By using it, I intended to imply that the GOP is a top-down hierarchy that tells its acolytes what to shout and when to stamp their feet, like football fans being led by a cheerleading squad. Maybe being in the military is a better analogy: Doing your own thinking is antithetical to the GOP command-and-control structure. And that model is falling apart because the Tea Partiers are following a different cheer and are not thinking and saying what the GOP establishment wants them to. They’re still a brainless herd, but they’re no longer being herded by their masters, they’re stampeding. As any cowboy knows, stampedes are bad for business.
@23 (continued) The Teepers are getting an assist from some big-bucks bankrollers, but they’re very much a grassroots movement with an energy of its own, as opposed to a creation of GOP operatives.
@24 Yes, that matters, because it weakens their effectiveness; but they’re not ineffective or irrelevant. And, let’s not overlook that some Teeper-backed candidates — people too crazy to be taken seriously in past elections — did win seats in Congress and there will be a Tea Party presence in the next Congress.
Kind of like the first small contingent of Nazis in the Reichstag, although let’s hope and pray history doesn’t repeat itself in terms of where the Teepers go from here.
@29 Well, we’ll see, but that’s certainly not the flavor of their current rhetoric. The Teeper freshmen are making noises like they want the senior party leadership to let them write the party’s congressional agenda. They may be in for an education but I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk that they’re just going to quietly fall in line behind Boehner’s gavel. The GOP side of the House could be a noisy place afer January. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops.
@37 At the same time, one of ’em–who happens to be an anesthesiologist!–went ballistic at an orientation meeting when he learned that his own government-provided free health plan won’t kick in until 30 days after he’s seated.
a) The federal employee health plans aren’t “free”. Not even close. They’re pretty much typical big-business insurance plans, with the employee responsible for about 1/3 of the premium. Where the feds differ from most employers is in the huge number of plans offered.
b) All Dr. Harris has to do — and any HR staffer with an iota of capability could explain it to him — is make his resignation from the faculty and staff at Johns Hopkins Hospital effective as of January 1, 2011. Even one day of employment in the month means his insurance is in effect for the entire month. He’ll be eligible for his federal plan on February 1, and therefore will not miss a single second of insurance coverage.
c) Assuming that he’s accrued some vacation time at Hopkins, he won’t have to actually show up at the hospital in January. Subtract his earned vacation days from 01/01/2011, and he can stop working on whatever date that comes to.
That he doesn’t know these basic facts of worklife is actually a greater outrage than his inane complaint.
@39 Well, I used to work for the Dept. of Anesthesiology at the UW, and one of the common jokes in that world defined an anesthesiologist as “a doctor who’s half asleep over a patient who’s half awake”. Maybe that actually applies to this fellow.
@39
Actually I thought Congress had a particularly generious plan not requiring any employee contribution.
No, Chris. Members of Congress have the same choices as any other federal employees. Thank Frank Luntz’s disinformation-meisters (and the utter inability of Democrats to counter them) for your misconceived notion that they have “gold-plated” insurance.
Working where you do, you have much, much, much, much, much better insurance than Andy Harris will have. Working where I do, I have insurance that’s merely much, much better.
AtFart @40, them’s fightin’ words. My father was a gas-passer…
@42
Actually I’m a contractor so I have the option of giving up $5/hr for OK insurance via my contract agency.
@43 As a matter of fact, I first heard that joke from Dr. Ray Fink, who was the assistant head of the department.