Republicans can keep on talking
Ah, it’s spring. Or what inhabitants of the Arctic Circle call spring.
Despite the unseasonably cool temperatures, tiny leaves are starting to sprout; grass is turning a healthy green; and birds are making their way back from wherever they were.
It’s time, too, for Republicans to begin their annual primary election infighting.
Establishment Republicans are hoping to maintain control of the U.S. House and to retake control of the Senate. Meanwhile, with each primary election, there’s also a sense of dread.
The primary season officially kicked-off last Tuesday in North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans in North Carolina are confident that Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan can be defeated in November.
The winner of the Republican primary election was Thom Tillis, North Carolina’s speaker of the house, who ignited a national outrage in 2013 because he backed deep cuts in the state’s social services, extreme curbs on abortions and one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country.
Even worse was a videotape released before last week’s primary, which showed Tillis at a town hall meeting, saying he had a plan to “divide and conquer” people who get public assistance. He even went so far as to claim people with cerebral palsy should look down at public assistance recipients. Suddenly, Kay Hagan’s seat seems more secure.
Back in 2010, there were hopes among Republicans that the growing tea party movement would help produce a Republican majority in the Senate.
Then came Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell in Delaware, and Sharron “2nd Amendment remedies” Angle in Nevada. They both proved they were unsuited for the Senate because their rhetoric even scared their fellow Republicans. The result sent Harry Reid and Joe Biden back to the Senate, until Biden took his position as vice president.
In 2012, mainstream Republicans had the same problem.
Missouri’s Democratic Sen., Claire McCaskill, a staunch supporter of President Obama, and his healthcare plan, was considered to be highly vulnerable.
Republicans ended up running tea party favorite, Todd “the female body has ways of shutting that whole thing down” Akin. He’d blundered into answering a question about abortion and the possibility that a woman should be permitted to have one in the case of pregnancies as the result of rape.
“From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin replied in a moment of utter lunacy.
There’s no U.S. Sen. Akin. There is, however, a U.S. Sen. McCaskill.
And, too, there’ve been some mighty anxious moments when there’s any indication that a Republican candidate for anything gets the full weight of support by the tea party.
Richard Mourdock defeated Richard Lugar, the venerable Republican Senator from Indiana in the 2012 primary election. Mourdock was considered to be a shoe-in for the U.S. Senate before he opened his mouth. Mourdock made a preposterous statement about abortion and the possibility that a woman who is raped should be permitted to have an abortion.
“I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen,” Mourdock claimed.
The response, even from such Republican stalwarts as John McCain, was swift and furious. That’s why there’s no Sen. Richard Mourdock, but there is a U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly — his Democratic opponent in the 2012 general election.
There will undoubtedly be some anxious moments as the primary election season unfolds.
Not so much for Democrats but for Republicans who’re hoping to avoid the extreme rhetoric of their ultra-conservative party members. And it’s already started.
The Republican hoping to unseat Senator Majority leader Mitch McConnell in Tennessee — State Sen. Stacey Campfield — has already likened the mandatory sign-ups for Obamacare to “Germans bragging about the number of mandatory sign-ups for ‘train rides for Jews in the ’40s.”
That provoked Tennessee’s state Republican (not Democratic) Party Chairman to reply, “While Stacey Campfield routinely makes remarks that are over the top, today’s comments are ignorant and repugnant.”
I say, let him keep talking!
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net