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Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)
In 2010, Republican primary voters ignored the GOP establishment's wishes and several U.S. Senate races. The result was several winnable contests for Republicans -- including Nevada, Delaware, and Colorado -- in which Democrats prevailed. In 2012, it happened again in states like Missouri and Indiana.
Looking ahead, GOP leaders are desperate to prevent similar fiascoes, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee is eyeing a more prominent role in party primaries to prevent unelectable candidates from winning the party's nomination.
There is, however, a big problem -- far-right activists don't care what the establishment wants, don't like the candidates the NRSC supports, and don't see the problem with the status quo. This is likely to get ugly, and we're already watching the first proxy fight unfold.
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito's (R-W.Va.) candidacy for a West Virginia Senate seat is already signaling that Republicans could face the same intra-party split that plagued them in primaries over the past two cycles.
On day one of her candidacy, Capito received criticism from two conservative groups known for mounting primary challenges against establishment-backed Republicans: the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group founded by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
Chris Chocola, president of the Club, slammed her as an "establishment candidate," and Senate Conservatives Fund executive director Matt Hoskins said the group wouldn't endorse her.
For the Republican establishment, Capito's announcement was fantastic news -- she's easily the most popular Republican in West Virginia and her campaign kickoff might pressure incumbent Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D) to retire. With Capito on the ballot in this once-blue-now-red state, the GOP sees this race a big step towards retaking the Senate majority.
But in keeping with the recent pattern, the party's right-wing base isn't satisfied.
Not even three weeks since the election, Capito's challenge to Democrat Sen. Jay Rockefeller is already shaping up as test case of whether Republicans can overcome deep fissures within the party and produce palatable general-election candidates who aren't fatally wounded by bruising primary battles.
"We never have been able to guarantee the most electable candidate can win a primary," acknowledged veteran GOP power broker Charlie Black. "There was all that talk after 2010 when we kicked three seats away and nothing changed."
Indeed, it's arguably getting worse. Capito is a godsend for the Republican Party, but she's pro-choice, voted for S-CHIP, and has voted to extend unemployment benefits, so the far-right is prepared to veto her candidacy, despite her otherwise-conservative credentials and strong poll numbers.
Ideological purity comes at a high price.
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Shelley Moore Capito is a piece of work. I lived in WV before and after she was elected, and I was amazed she was elected to anything. For those not familiar with her history, she is the daughter of former WV governor Arch Moore. Old Arch got sent away to prison for taking a $100,000 bribe from a coal company official. He tried to keep anyone from seeing him taking the bribe....by taking it in his governor's limo, crouching down on the floor of the limo! Yep, no one saw him with that crafty bit of work! Meanwhile, Shelley and her husband were busy dealing drugs, with the result that her hubby ended up going to the same prison as her dad. Guess that made visitation dates a lot more convenient for the family! Much of their property was confiscated because it was bought with drug money, but for some reason, (good lawyer), Shelley herself never went to prison. After all, how could she possibly know that her husband was making all this money selling drugs right under her nose? If she runs for the Senate, expect that all of this will come up, and it will make for an interesting primary and election. I think it will help any dem challenger.
Wow! Even the Maddow Blog gets spammed by right wing orthodoxy. Nice unity. You folks must love Manchin, he is the best Republican.
I never said I like Manchin either, who is a Blue Dog by any definition. When I lived in WV, dems outnumbered repubs 3 to 1 in voter registration. It should have remained a reliably blue state, but alas, it succumbed to racism in the past two elections. There are plenty of good dems there, and one can only hope that one of them will end up running against Shelley Moore Capito or whatever right wing nut comes along. John Raese must be getting tired of losing elections at every single level he has tried, from state legislature to governor to senator, and he's pretty far to the right, so perhaps the far right that supported him won't have any greater success in the primaries or the general election.
You would think even the Tea Partiers would be happy after a series of not-so-close losses by their man, John Raese. But Capito is no moderate. She's a tool of the banking industry, who talks about civility a lot, even though she participated in the 2009 Guy Fawkes Day Obamacare protest. Her father was a corrupt governor of WV from the '60s to the '80s and eventually spent three years in prison as a result.
There is a "tipping point" in atmospheric CO2 (350 ppm) that once passed, there is no going back.
Judging from the senatorial election results of 2008 and 2012, the Republican Party may have "gone over that cliff."
Yessirree Bob, once the atmosphere becomes .000350 CO2 we're done for.
Not.
The GOP will be done for if they don't manage to stop cannibalizing each other.
Right now the GOP looks less like a three legged stool, than like a Scorpion, a Snake and a Mongoose locked in a broom closet
Please, moron idiots, keep shooting yourselves in the foot. If you decide to aim higher, that's OK too, not that you're likely to hit anything useful.
If she gets beat up from within her big tent, what has the Republican establishment done but let loose a monster of belief at the expense of common sense and democratic policy-making.
To the conservative Republican faction, shredding the tent is always an option! -Kevo
Let me be the first to welcome our new Borgia overlords.
Any truly CONSERVATIVE!!, self respecting REPUBLICAN!! who has any pride whatsoever in calling themselves CONSERVATIVE!!REPUBLICANS!! will not stand for this wishy washy, pseudo Republican who is just waiting for a chance to get into office and sell the entire CONSERVATIVE!!REPUBLICAN!! agenda down the river to voracious, America hating, liberal socialists.
There's a more patriotic, constitution loving, CONSERVATIVE!!REPUBLICAN!! out there in The Homeland that would make Ms. Capito pale in comparison. Find that person that you can truly depend on, you true believers in the American Way. Find that special, absolutely uncompromising anti-RINO American Patriot, and Ms. Capito will not be able to torture your dreams with her RINO heresies.
Do. Not. Capitulate, (Capito... Capitulate... very, very close... OMG, please hurry).
The Republican party was the birthplace of American Progressivism. Personally, I am proud to be a progressive Republican and consider the only true RINOs to be the fringe wingbat conservatives who have hijacked my party!
"Ideological purity comes at a high price."
It's not "ideological purity" it's "religuluous simplicity"! This is what happens when you "court the religuluous" (dance with the devil, etc.) - they have NO understanding of the issues, don't believe in compromise, and don't believe in "reality" - and now there is no placating them. They will exact their "pound of flesh" one way or the other and the nation be damned! Good luck to the GOP on their impending implosion, cause it is coming.
How does insulting people regarding their religious beliefs and understandings help gather support from people who might otherwise share your political beliefs sans all the gratuitous bigotry?
I would like to see a substantive debate on the issues. Would that not be a refreshing change.
The right is still right. What is wrong with that? NOTHING! Let the right wing dominate the GOP and it will save us a lot of time and effort to defeat them at the voting booth.
As a progressive, I do not really see a down side to this.
Perhaps you should look at the issues which require the votes of people who don't share your party affiliation but may well be intelligent and reasonable enough to vote with you to improve the nation if you weren't so busy trying to castigate and pillory them for being different from you in ways that don't really make much difference.
Interestingly, we're actually due for a political party split. Every 40 or 50 years, it seems the political parties reorganize (though sometimes they use the same party names after reorganizing). I think our current "Political Era" started in the 1960s.
I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP and the NRSC split and create two distinct parties. I'm sure the NRSC would have much better ground in the political battle field if they can leave the GOP behind. Ideologically, they are completely different, so I don't see why they should stay together.
"Ideological purity" or "sticking to conservative principles" is code words for avoiding compromise at any and all costs. This has been one of the bedrocks of the Tea Party and so far that has done little to help the GOP keep itself on the forefront of being a relative national party. Since the 2010 red tide in the midterms, all the Tea Party has done is primary Republican candidates that could have gone on to win their seats and possibly taken back control of the Senate. I'm not saying that's a scenario I wanted to see happen, but it is clear it had a strong chance without the Tea Party interference in the Republican primary process.
This continued hatred of the term and practice of compromise will only serve to push the GOP and the Tea Party farther into the political marshlands, away from people interested in actually moving the country forward in a practical and pragmatic fashion.
As Sun Tsu points out, there comes a time when the enemy becomes so confused, he contributes to his own destruction. I think we're there.
I think what WV needs is a few good conservative GOP carpetbaggers. C'mon Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. Time to start singing "Take me home, country roads..." What's the residency requirement?