Cornyn's Epic Fail: GOP Establishment Picks Floundering In Senate Races Coast To Coast

[ProSense]

Cornyn's Epic Fail: GOP Establishment Picks Floundering In Senate Races Coast To Coast

Did John Cornyn Back The Wrong Horses? Inside The 2010 GOP Split

Christina Bellantoni

Establishment GOP candidates across the country backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee are struggling to gain grassroots traction over their primary challengers, with conservative darlings like Marco Rubio surging. It's a split illustrating the deep divisions in the Republican party as it seems Washington's establishment miscalculated who would be the better candidates from California to Florida.

Rubio is the best example, as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's support - especially among Republicans - has plunged this year. That's one reason why NRSC Chairman John Cornyn is singing Rubio's praises and promising not to bash him despite backing Crist as the early favorite to win the open seat in the Sunshine State.

Sen. Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund has taken the lead to blatantly challenge Cornyn's candidates in California, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. After Republican divisions threw a wrench into the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional district last fall, the NRSC announced they wouldn't get involved in or spend money in these contested primaries.

"The rules have changed and the political ground has shifted under the feet of the establishment and they are still trying to get their footing," Mike Connolly of the conservative Club for Growth told me in an interview today. The group was backing outsider candidates before it was cool, encouraging contested primaries by running Pat Toomey (R-PA) against Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004.

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[WCGreen]

1. DeMint wants to be the next republican Senate Leader...

He is pushing hard and harder still to take the party to the far right...

I wish him all the luck in the world.

[southernyankeebelle]

7. Lets hope he goes so far to the right he goes over the clift.

[hulka38]

2. We don't have to look to the other party to see epic fail.

[babylonsister]

4. If you think that, why hang around here? Seems you'd find better

things to do. :shrug:

[hulka38]

6. Change only comes if you're willing to recognize problems in your own house

I hope that when we have failure in our house, we address it and not distract ourselves by pointing to our neighbor's failures.
I'm about hope and change. That's who I am.:shrug:

[babylonsister]

3. Rec'd. What a terrific headline!

:rofl:

[Jennicut]

5. The real issue will be if anyone decides to run a third party or offs the more well liked

establishment Rethug and people turn to the Dem instead. Wishful thinking, I know.

[Cosmocat]

8. Gotta see ...

what it looks like after the primary, but I can tell you for a complete fact, if the Ds were this fractured going into a primary, it would be heard 24-7 on the MSM ...

Maybe the come together going into the fall, maybe the tea party and far righties line up behind the moderates who win the primary, and maybe the far righties who win primaries get the moderate middle in the fall ...

We will see ...

[depakid]

9. A worrisome trend- considering that many of these loonies are likely to be in the Senate for 6 years

[Cha]

10. IOW...the willfully ignorant lying teabaggers are

trying wedge in.