Redstate

A Few Thoughts on the Right and Laffey

By Erick Posted in 2006 | Featured Stories — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Conn Carroll, who has the rather thankless job of putting together the Hotline's Blogometer, wrote this yesterday:

It's no mystery where RedState, Power Line et al stand, but RI SEN was never a priority for them. Whatever the reasons for the difference in focus, the contrast demonstrates that the insurgent Dem faction is much more blogger-based than GOP dissenters. We'll see how long this stays the case.

Well, with the race over, let's have some reflection.

Read on . . .

There is a reason the "insurgent Dem faction is much more blogger-based than GOP dissenters." It has a lot to do with bloggers on the right being grounded in reality. Uh, hello? Tim Walberg anyone? We went to the mat for Tim. He won. And he will most likely win in November. RedState endorsed Tim as a site position, which we never did for Laffey.

Several here, including me, have spoken very highly of Laffey and very critically of Chafee. I even did a podcast with Laffey. Let's remember that Chafee votes with the GOP less than Democratic Senator Ben Nelson. There is a reason for the criticisms. Likewise, given that Chafee has toyed with the idea of jumping ship to the Dems if the Senate were 50-50 and that he did not vote for Bush, we have every right.

But, let's get back to the reality bit. The lefty bloggers backed Paul Hackett, who went down in flames. The lefty bloggers backed Ned Lamont, who has soared to great heights, but who will lose the general election to Joe Lieberman, who will probably be emboldened upon victory to stand athwart the would be kingmakers on the left and make their lives hell. The left likes to pick candidates and build them up. The right actually likes targeting candidates who have already proven themselves viable -- its our conservative nature. We did it with Tom Coburn and Jim Demint in 2004. We did it with John Shadegg in the leader's race. We did it with Tim Walberg. We're doing it with Mike Bouchard and Van Taylor.

It does us no good to go recruit or promote a candidate who has not yet proven his viability outside the blogosphere. After all, we should all admit that bloggers, like political junkies, are not your typical voter. A candidate, like Hackett, might sell well in the blogosphere because he is a kindred spirit, but then scare the hell out of the average voter who doesn't want some anti-war nut job representing them in Congress.

On the right, we liked Laffey. Lincoln Chafee needed to be beaten up. We needed an ideological battle. But we all knew, whether we admitted it or not, that Laffey most likely could not win the general -- and at the end of the day, he would have done us little good if he couldn't win. Don't get me wrong, we would have loved to see him beat Lincoln Chafee. There is not much to distinguish Chafee from the Democrat. We might as well take the Democrat. But why do we, on the right, want to pour resources into a losing race? And you know what, every time Chafee licks his wounds now, he'll probably remember the race he had and that maybe, just maybe, he wants to be less of a show horse for the Democrats in the Senate.

So Conn, that's why Rhode Island was never a priority for us. Over on the right, we're not trying to crash gates. We're trying to assist when we can be helpful and are in agreement. Sometimes we have to pick fights with the establishment when the establishment goes off the reservation. But mostly we want to help the party, not be a party or a kingmaker unto ourselves. After all, we have real jobs and families to worry about. This is just a hobby for most of us (yours truly excluded). And at RedState, we're conservative in the primary, Republican in the general, but try to keep a healthy dose of reality always mixed in.