Republican Base Also Hates Charlie Crist
Beloved wingnut blog RedState has taken an important stand against the Senate campaign of orange-skinned gay RINO and Florida Governor Charlie Crist. "If the NRSC thinks this is smart, we must not waste our time or energy with them," RedState's Erick Erickson wrote today. "Join me in pledging no money, no help, no aid, and no support for the NRSC’s efforts in the 2010 election cycle." Yes!
Erickson has raised a virtual teabag -- a Facebook group called "Not one penny to the National Republican Senatorial Committee" -- and his loyalist comrades are quickly vowing to join his donation boycott of the NRSC.
Now, this might be simple ideological posturing, either because Crist may be popular enough in Florida to win without the nutty old Cubano wing of nutty state's Republicans, or because the race really doesn't matter as the Democrats will likely add to their (almost) 60-seat supermajority in 2010, so who really cares if Crist is part of the lonely 38 or 35 or 11 Senate Republicans as of January 2011.
But, if the louder and more vulgar version of RedState's conservative-purity tests raises his awful voice, Crist is done, his young Cubano primary opponent will win (and lose handily in the general), and Charlie will finish his term as governor and go back to the Palm Beach bachelor life he knows so well. Maybe he can start a consulting firm with Mark Foley! In the better neighborhoods, society doesn't give a damn about gentlemens loving other gentlemens.
And holding out on NRSC donations is going to murder the GOP in close races where they just might hold some seats if they can afford to compete, and if they come up with ... oh, who knows, a strategy or something?
Obama won Florida. He also won Ohio, where George Voinovich is retiring. Democrats are going to be competitive in Kansas and Missouri, with both states losing Republican senators to retirement next year. More retirements may be on the way -- if it's demoralizing for an ancient GOP senator to deal with a Dem-led Senate, House and White House, it's just crushing to be part of a sub-40-seat minority.
NRSC chairman John Cornyn has already warned Senate Republicans that they'd better announce retirement soon if they're thinking about it, because he's already facing a bloodbath and doesn't want to be running around trying to find new GOP candidates six months before election day.
2010 is going to be hilarious.