The Senate's 'Manchurian candidates'
In the 1962 film “The Manchurian Candidate,” Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw is brainwashed into becoming an unwitting accomplice for an international communist conspiracy. Shaw, a good man and a patriot, is conditioned into taking actions that advance a cause that he does not support.
Over the past two election cycles, Republican primary voters in several states have been subject to the Manchurian Candidate treatment — helping to hand at least five U.S. Senate seats, and control of the Senate, to the Democratic Party.Continue Reading
In Nevada in 2010, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid retained his seat, despite abysmal approval ratings, because Nevada Republican primary voters had chosen possibly the one person in the entire state who couldn’t defeat Harry Reid — Sharron Angle.
That same year, Delaware Republican primary voters defeated Rep. Mike Castle — the one Republican who could win statewide in the deep blue state. Instead, choosing to go with Christine O’Donnell, a candidate whose first general election ad famously declared, “I am not a witch.”
Republicans left a third seat on the table in the 2010 midterms, when Colorado Republican primary voters chose right-wing firebrand Ken Buck over former Colorado Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. Despite a historic Republican wave, Democrat Michael Bennet was able to prevail over Buck in the general election.
In 2012, this disastrous trend continued. In Missouri, Republican primary voters chose Rep. Todd Akin. Akin’s primary campaign received a big assist from Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill who spent money in the GOP primary painting Akin as the most conservative of her challengers. McCaskill’s money was well spent and she got her wish. Akin won the primary and within weeks of winning became a national albatross for Republicans after comments about “forcible rape.” McCaskill, who was one of the highest priority targets for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, cruised to reelection.
The Missouri Senate seat wasn’t the only unforced error by Republicans in 2012. In Indiana, Republican primary voters ousted longtime Sen. Dick Lugar and instead chose tea party favorite Richard Mourdock. The once safe Indiana Senate seat suddenly was lost to the GOP after Mourdock made comments about rapes that resulted in pregnancies were “God’s will.”
That is five Senate seats in two cycles essentially given away. Five seats that Republicans could have and should have won, which were lost because Republican primary voters chose candidates that could not win in a general election.
I do not believe that Republican primary voters in any of these five states intended to elect a Democrat in November by selecting a candidate that could not win. I do not believe that any of these Republican primary voters intended to hand Harry Reid and the Democrats control of the Senate. That is, in fact, however, what they actually did.