Home / News /

Will strategy of picking moderates prove successful?

September 18, 2009 — In the movie “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” the Montana Governor has a difficult time trying to pick a US Senate to appoint.  He tries flipping a coin to decide.  The coin lands upon its side.

 Picking a Senate nominee may seem like that for Republicans.  The last two election cycles have not been kind to the GOP.  Not only did the party lose its clear majority, but it seems in danger of losing its ability to filibuster legislation.  And the 2010 cycle may not be kind to the GOP, either, given the electoral map and the need to defend more seats.  Republicans have a very small margin for error.

 To overcome this, National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Cornyn of Texas and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are trying to pick candidates in primaries to support, who they think will have a better chance of winning in 2010.  And it just so happens that several of them may be more moderate than conservative.

 Josh Kraushaar’s Politico article “Conservatives Resent NRSC Nods” documents political insiders defending the Cornyn plan, noting Democrats employed such a similar winning strategy in the last two election cycles.  “The job of the party committee is to help people with an ‘R’ next to their name; it doesn’t matter what their ideology is” said Carl Forti of the NRCC.  Another political consultant, Phil Musser, says that “Cornyn and his team make careful decisions about who they endorse and support with one criterion in mind: who has the best chance of winning the seat, plain and simple.”

But conservatives are steamed that the NRSC appears to be “picking winners” in Florida, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Colorado, and California.  Conservative State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who is being slighted in favor of the more moderate Hewlitt Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, said, “Under John Cornyn, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has racked up an impressive string of endorsements in support of nonconservative, unpopular, poorly vetted candidates across the nation. These candidacies have thus far gone on to flounder or implode.”

Kraushaar also cites Erick Erickson, who runs the conservative blog “Red State.”  The editor is targeting the NRSC in general and Cornyn in particular, due to apparent preferences for moderate candidates.

 “The NRSC is actively trying to undermine the conservative Republican base with milquetoast establishment Republicans the nation rejected in 2006 and 2008,” Erickson wrote.

So what’s the best policy for Senate Republicans?  Rather than guess, I look at 23 contested GOP Senate primaries from 2004 to 2008.  The split between moderates and conservatives was nearly 50-50, so this should be a good test of the Cornyn-McConnell hypothesis.

Results show a slight edge for moderates in these contests.  In the last three elections, moderates have won 41.67% of their contests after facing a divisive primary, while only 27.3 percent of conservatives have prevailed under such conditions, a 14 percent advantage for the more “electable” candidates.

Moderates who were already incumbents seeking reelection while fending off a conservative challenger seemed to do the best (Specter, Graham, Murkowski, as opposed to DeWine and Chafee, who lost their seats, though each is plotting a comeback).  In open seats, both GOP ideologies did pretty well, but moderates had the edge (66.67%-50%) in such contests.  For conservatives, in two of their three Fall Election successes for an open seat, it was an intra-conservative primary battle (DeMint vs Beasley, Martinez vs McCollum).  GOP candidates of both ideologies performed miserably against Democratic Party incumbents in the 2004-2008 period.

It seems that Cornyn and McConnell are on to something by preferring electable candidates, regardless of ideology.   Both would do well not to completely disqualify conservatives in their “picking” of winners.  Conservatives may not have the same track record as moderates in these Senate races, but can hold their own in battles for open seats.