In Targeting Murkowski, Tea Party Chooses Wisely

[FBaggins]

There’s no doubt that the Tea Party could get the Republicans in trouble in certain races. In Nevada and Kentucky, for example, Sharron Angle and Rand Paul knocked off candidates preferred by the party establishment in order to win their primaries. Although the FiveThirtyEight model has both Ms. Angle and Mr. Paul as slight favorites the general election, the races are closer than they otherwise might be.

With Senator Lisa Murkowski’s concession late Tuesday night in Alaska, where she was defeated by the insurgent candidate Joe Miller, the Tea Party will have played a role in defeating two Republican incumbents (Robert F. Bennett of Utah is the other). In these two cases, the Tea Party is on much firmer tactical ground.

...snip...

Under certain circumstances, these dalliances with centrism might be something Republicans might tolerate. It is unlikely that a senator significantly more conservative than Ms. Collins or Ms. Snowe could be elected out of Maine; instead, the seat would probably default to a Democrat. But Ms. Murkowski and Mr. Bennett hail from Alaska and Utah, two of the most conservative states in the country (although Alaska is somewhat idiosyncratically so), and Republicans could afford to be picky.

...snip...

Democrats, meanwhile, mounted serious primary challenges to three of their incumbents: Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Michael Bennet of Utah (the challenge succeed only in Mr. Specter’s case). None of these quite fit the paradigm.


http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/in-targeting-murkowski-tea-party-chooses-wisely/#more-515

[Arctic Dave]

1. Alaskan republicans are going to have to go through a reality check.

They may scream they are "by their bootstraps" type of success stories, but, in reality without the Federal Government, Alaska would still be a backwater state even with all of our resources.

Miller wants to take away the source of money that has made a lot of people a good living in this state. To appeal to the more moderate republicans joe will have to backpedal hard, which in turn will infuriate his rabid and irrational base.

[WI_DEM]

2. I can't believe that Angle is a "slight favorite" given all the things she has said...

[FBaggins]

3. I understand... but that ignores how deeply unpopular Reid had become.

Her foot-in-mouth disease has been the only thing keeping him in the race.

Don't tell her, but if she would just shut up and carry a placard reading "I'm not Harry"... she would win by double digits.

She has an ad going up in the next few days that aims to shift the debate back to how awful things have gotten in NV (and, of course, tying it all to Reid). We'll know in the next week or two whether she succeeds.