The National Journal takes a look at Republican prospects to defeat Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in 2012 (my emphasis):
The biggest news nugget in the otherwise sleepy Washington Senate race this week was the emergence of Scott Stanzel, a former George W. Bush spokesman, as a possible candidate against Sen. Maria Cantwell, who unlike many other Democratic incumbents, looks to be in very solid shape in her 2012 reelection bid. While Washington leans Democratic, Republicans have fielded competitive statewide candidates in recent years. But so far, no one has stepped up to take on Cantwell.
and then, again…
While no major Republican is currently running against Cantwell, the GOP have landed top statewide recruits in the recent years, and have done so this cycle in two other races.
Who are these “top statewide recruits” the article mentions? By “recent years” does the author mean 2004?!? Because, it seems to me, that’s the last time the G.O.P. “fielded competitive statewide candidates” who weren’t incumbents. Namely, Dino Rossi in his close-but-no-cigar gubernatorial bid and Rob McKenna in his U.S. Chamber of Commerce-supercharged victory over Deborah Senn.
Rossi came back a couple of times, but was he a “top recruit” after the self-inflicted damage of the recount contest?
Remember Rossi’s un-statesmanlike quasi-concession speech:
“With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest.”
That statement told voters a lot about Rossi they didn’t know seven months earlier. Can a person really be considered a top recruit after that kind of statement?
Did Mike McGavick ever threaten to become a competitive candidate?
“Competitive statewide candidates?” “Top statewide recruits?”
Where do these silly memes come from?
Ah, yes, and the righties claim the media is liberal . . .
The National Review is just trying to put the best spin on things they can. There is really nobody available with enough gravitas to challenge Cantwell. The governor’s race may be close, but barring a major health crisis on the part of Cantwell, she’s in for another six years.
As for the national presidential race, Huntsman looks like an early drop-out from among the field of minnows. He simply hasn’t gotten any significant support. His views are too moderate to bring in the Tea Party money and volunteers. He’s only raised $5 million so far, and over half of that is his own money. Romney already has the Mormon vote tied up. His campaign manager quit today. Although he has only been in the race for a month, there is no way he’s going to survive long enough to make it to the New Hamshire primary, which was his only hope. I predict he will bow out before the end of the month.
Huntsman may simply too close to being sane to be an acceptable nominee to the freak show the Republican Party has become. However, I have to admit my impression to that effect is influenced by a piece about him in the latest Esquire. That magazine seems to be accumulating a track record of picking one GOP hopeful at a time (such as Time Pawlenty a while back), presenting him as a “voice of reason” palatable to independent voters and perhaps even conservative Democrats, only to have that person’s image devolve later into that of one more off-the-rails extremist in the pocket of Big Business, pandering to the teabag nut cases.
@2. That’s the National Journal, not the National Review. Different animal, owned by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly.
Huntsman seems to me to be far and away the best of a very weak slate. He is, accordingly, doomed.
It sure was fun typing Mike!, though, wasn’t it?
So…, keeping track of the players….
Donald Trump is out. Except that he might get back in, he says. He’s not a serious candidate, he’s just doing it for the publicity. If he isn’t in the limelight, he shrivels up and dies.
Gingrich hasn’t (officially) dropped out yet, but his campaign is in debt and his senior staff have all deserted him. It’s all over but for the announcement.
Rick Perry isn’t in yet, but he’s making every indication that he will throw his hat into the ring. Problem is, it’s a crowded field of “anybody but Romney” folks, and if he doesn’t poll above 10% very quickly, he might be consigned to the back-burner.
Sarah Palin is still being bandied about, but if I had to put money on it, I would bet she won’t run. Bachman’s already soaking up the crazy vote right now. Besides, Palin’s celbrity status and enfluence revolve around the question of whether or not she will run – once that question is answered, she will just be another candidate who’s support can be measured as being much smaller than expected. Besides, she’s more interested in making money now, and she has NEVER had to run in a presidential primary camapaign before. I don’t think she has the endurance, she would quit after a couple of months, complaining that the media isn’t being fair to her.
Personally, I think we should forget Bachman, Palin, and the “minnows” and put Romney under a microscope. He’s getting a free pass right now, staying above the fray while the Democrats chortle over the crazies, and the minnows fight one another for press space and money. If he can be reduced a few notches, then Bachman might be the nominee. I’d bet that even the wingnuts are a little scared of her handling the nuclear launch codes.
I miss Mike!
Kirby’s pining his hopes on the economy staying in the tank. Nice.
That article’s a joke.
Actually, the entire GOP strategy, nationwide, is for the economy to stay stuck in a holding pattern (or worse). That’s why they’ve been trying to kill it in so many different ways. Trying to instigate a default on the U.S. debt is just the most recent tactic.
Maybe the GOP’s masters plan on completely tanking the USA then buying up the country for one penny to the dollar.
Um, Kirby Wilbur?
You did notice where he was the only ‘Bagger quoted in the article. And you don’t honestly expect a busy, high-tech guy like Sean Sullivan to do actual journalism do you? That’s so ’90s.
Washington Republicans are reaping the fruits of purging all the reasonable people from their party.
The top turd on a pile of whale shit is still at the bottom of the sea.
@7 “I’d bet that even the wingnuts are a little scared of her handling the nuclear launch codes.”
If I were a human, I’d feel very uncomfortable with that bet; but because I’m a rabbit, I say to you humans, go ahead and annihilate yourselves — we rabbits are ready and willing to take over your niche!
You know a political party is headed for the dustbin when an old boy as intellectually limited as Rick Perry is looked to as your party’s savior.
I think Mike! was considered a top recruit (or at least a good recruit) when he was recruited. It didn’t turn out that way, but I think it was a reasonable assumption at the beginning of the campaign that he would give Cantwell a run for her money. Perhaps they should have figured out the drunk driving stuff, and he may well have lost anyway. I know you can sight polls that he was behind, but you can find similar polls about Rossi this far out (ish) of 2004.
I think Rossi’s ’04 run was a fluke. The Liberal Media gave him a pass on a bunch of stuff, there was a general feeling that it was the Republican’s turn to be governor, and there was some fatigue from having the same folks down in Oly running the show for about forever- the governor having been the AG for the preceding 8 years and Locke’s hand picked successor and such. Gregiore also ran a really, really, shitty campaign and it was hard to tell the two apart; the law of commodity buying applied*.
*They’re both the same so pick the cheaper of the two.
Yep…keep bragging.
This state is run from top to bottom by democrats..and its national reresentatives are mostly democrat as well.
The democrats have run the state for god knows how long. The democrats have run king co forever. Same for seattle.
And guess what….the state, king co, and seattle are all financial(and leadership) clusterfucks. So go ahead and keep patting yourselves on the back. Keep trying to blame everyone else for the dire straights the state finances are in, but you are only fooling lemmings that keep voting along party lines.
Let’s all vote democrat…and chase out more companies and run what’s left of the state al the way into the ground.
Well done.
@18,
Which companies have been chased out?
In addition to being wrong, you have got it ass backwards. In the 30 years Democrats have dominated the political landscape in the state of Washington and King County, not only has the area’s GDP, employment and real wages increased at a rate faster than the national average, King County and our state have landed 2 of the World’s premier companies.
Care to guess the names of these 2 companies which are known to nearly everyone on the planet?
Nevermind.
Bartertown @18
So which Republican county should we look to as a shining example of grand fiscal management? Kitatas maybe? The rest are sucking on the state’s money teat big time. Can you say Welfare Queens?
If it wasn’t for Seattle/King County this state would be completely in the financial toilet.
Virginia faced with prospect of their credit rating being revised downward. Gov. McDonnell [R] now wants the Rethug created financial crisis in DC solved even if it means raising taxes on the rich. Who would have thought…
I’m not saying the Dems are great at financial management. But where, I ask, are the good Republican examples of wonderful financial management to be found?
Ohio? Wisconsin? Florida? New Jersey?
For all of Bartertown’s bitching, this state is actually doing pretty good when compared to the rest of the country, especially when compared to the Rethug run states.
@18.
Yes, the Democrats run the show and have for quite some time. But, they do so because the Republican’s have effectively ceded the field by running far right whack jobs. If the Republicans ran people that didn’t completely suck they’d win a lot more often. Washington, including Seattle, isn’t as liberal as it’s given credit as being.
@25,
“Liberal” is a teatard Chimera.
There have not been any amazingly “Liberal” governors or US Senators in Washington in those 30 years. Just Democrats who ran the show good enough and/or better than the national average.
If Republicans did not completely suck in Washington, they would not be Washington Republicans.
@26
Good points!