Primaries school: What GOP can learn before midterms
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Democrats got an election-year wake-up call in January when they lost the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy. Did Republicans get their wake-up call last week?
The Republicans lost a winnable race in the special House election to fill the seat of the late Democratic congressman John Murtha. If the enthusiasm gap between energized Republicans and demoralized Democrats were as strong as the GOP has claimed, Republicans should have won the seat. Instead they lost it by eight percentage points.
In Kentucky, Republican voters picked libertarian conservative and "tea party" favorite Rand Paul as their nominee for Senate over an establishment-favored Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Paul's post-election ramblings about civil rights immediately exposed not only his own shortcomings as a candidate but the double-edged sword that the tea party movement is to the GOP.
In politics today, the narrative is king. Through the early months of this year, the narrative -- stoked by Republican spinmeisters -- held that President Obama and his agenda are so unpopular that the Democrats are almost certain to lose the House in November and possibly even the Senate. Last week's elections were a reminder that, sometimes, the narrative can get ahead of the facts.
(More here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Democrats got an election-year wake-up call in January when they lost the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy. Did Republicans get their wake-up call last week?
The Republicans lost a winnable race in the special House election to fill the seat of the late Democratic congressman John Murtha. If the enthusiasm gap between energized Republicans and demoralized Democrats were as strong as the GOP has claimed, Republicans should have won the seat. Instead they lost it by eight percentage points.
In Kentucky, Republican voters picked libertarian conservative and "tea party" favorite Rand Paul as their nominee for Senate over an establishment-favored Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Paul's post-election ramblings about civil rights immediately exposed not only his own shortcomings as a candidate but the double-edged sword that the tea party movement is to the GOP.
In politics today, the narrative is king. Through the early months of this year, the narrative -- stoked by Republican spinmeisters -- held that President Obama and his agenda are so unpopular that the Democrats are almost certain to lose the House in November and possibly even the Senate. Last week's elections were a reminder that, sometimes, the narrative can get ahead of the facts.
(More here.)
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