"Financial Attrition"

I think I'm going to try and feature links to people in the Moronosphere more than I have in the past.  I've always thought that Morons have some of the best insight and interesting stories on the intarwebs, and I'm regretting that I haven't been linking and showcasing that as much as I feel I should have.  In any case, this is from a fellow Keystone State Moron, I've made similar statements to what he's arguing, but he does so in a more thought-out and thorough manner than I. 

Sockless Joe agrees with the various punditry and talking heads that our odds of taking back the House and Senate are about nil, short of a major scandal break in our favor.  He also has this right, we shouldn't abandon the House and Senate races. 

Joe calls it Financial Attrition.  I like that.  And this is a demonstrable principle.  The GOP took a beating in PA in 2006, most notably with the loss of Rick Santorum's Senate seat to Bob Casey.  One of the things that really hurt us was that 2006 was fact that the PA gubernatorial race was that year. 

Why was the PA governor's race a factor?  Fast Eddie Rendell.  Rendell could have easily skated to his re-election in 2006, Lynn Swann, while a decent guy, is just not cut out for politics, and was a painfully (almost embarrassingly) weak candidate, which hurt GOP candidates because it gave people one less reason to go to polls at a time where the GOP was polling pretty weak.  Fast Eddie could have sat back and took re-election without lifting a finger.  He didn't.  He campaigned like he was in trouble, and spent a good bit of his war chest, and worked to boost Democrat candidates all throughout the state, which definitely hurt several GOP incumbents in the state.

We can do similar things.  Anywhere where we can challenge a otherwise safe Democrat saps them of resources they may otherwise be able to kick to candidates that are struggling or to help the presidential campaign itself.  As Joe says,

What do these unchallenged incumbents do with their money? They give some of it away to help candidates elsewhere. By helping push their marginal fellow partisans over the finish line they accumulate favors for future battles.

Oppositely, what does an incumbent do when he as a challenger? He empties his coffers! Electoral history is littered with the corpses of challengers who were outspent 3-to-1 yet were only defeated by a few percentage points.

We need to find candidates who have the potential to sap the coffers of normally well-entrenched Democrats.  The first person that comes to mind that would have that potential is Lou Barletta, given his national appeal to those concerned about illegal immigration.  Another good opportunity in PA will be either Chris Hackett or Dan Meuser, who are both trying to take back the House seat from Chris Carney, I prefer Hackett, as he seems to be the more solid conservative of the two, and District 10 is a pretty conservative district.  Beyond that, Hackett is getting all the right endorsements.  District 10 is a spot we can get back, we lost it due to scandal with Don "Is Don Sherwood gonna have to choke a bitch" Sherwood. Conservative Belle suggested a while ago that  Jon Elrod in Indiana may a possibility as well.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 04:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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