Elitism + Cluelessness = NRSC
I’ve often accused the Obama Administration of being filled with the politically tone-deaf, but the National Republican Senatorial Committee is giving them stiff competition:
Sean Cairncross, the general counsel of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is headed to Alaska at the request of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) to help provide guidance to the GOP incumbent who finds herself trailing attorney Joe Miller (R) by roughly 1,600 votes.
Cairncross will spend several days on the ground in Alaska as Murkowski and her campaign prepare for the counting of as many as 16,000 absentee ballots — a process expected to start next Tuesday and continue through early September.
Committee sources insisted that too much should not be read into Cairncross’ presence in Alaska — only that the NRSC is an incumbent-retention committee and, as such, provides assistance when Senators ask for it.
As evidence that the committee is not putting all of its chips on Murkowski, a GOP source tells the Fix that Rob Jesmer, the bespectacled executive director of the NRSC, spoke by phone with a top Miller aide yesterday — making clear that if he wins the election the committee will support him wholeheartedly.
How nice: “Oh, if you still happen to win, Mr. Miller (you peasant), we’ll deign to help you. Until then, we’re going to do all we can to help our incumbent sister keep the seat Daddy gave her.”
You would think, after the flack the NRSC took for interfering in Florida’s primary, they’d remember the lesson. (Just how did that Crist endorsement work out for you guys, eh?) Senator Cornyn, head of the NRSC, even promised to not spend money in contested primaries. So…what? Cairncross isn’t being paid?
For a supposedly smart bunch, the NRSC is like the guy who goes to the doctor complaining that it hurts whenever he hits himself in the head with a hammer: too dumb to realize he should stop doing it. They’re completely misreading the mood of the electorate and spitting in the faces the voters – who want to vote for conservative Republican candidates, not kinda-sorta squishes who are all too happy to bolt the party.
There’s a huge anti-Beltway elitist, anti-incumbent wave sweeping the electorate, and it’s showing up in election after election and poll after poll. People are angry at Washington telling them what they must do; the rejection of ObamaCare is just one example. It’s largely aimed at the Democrats for the insane way they’ve governed since 2009, showing little but contempt for ordinary citizens, and they’re going to get punished for it harshly in November. But stupid stuff like sending a top lawyer to fight for the incumbent who’s been rejected by the locals tells the voters that the national Republicans are little different from the Democrats. That’ll help bring in the donations.
Is this really smart, Senator Cornyn? It may not be a big deal in reality, but just how do you think this will look to the average grassroots voter? Ooops. And how long will it take you to scrape the egg off your face again after Murkowski loses in the absentees and then says “thanks for all the help” by bolting to the Libertarian Party?
No wonder they call the Republicans the “party of stupid.”
LINKS: More at Hot Air, Conservatives for Palin, and Obi’s Sister.
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)