At Post Partisan, I take advantage of the end of the Newt Gingrich campaign to take several shots at the disgraced former Speaker. I did not, however, use the words "total fraud." Nor did I call him Tom P. Baxter. Restraint! But I did say several unkind things, as regular readers might imagine.
Over at Greg's place, meanwhile, I talked about the two Members who were defeated in PA Democratic primaries yesterday (one in a Member-Member race). My post there was about the upside for liberals in winning the spin on these races and therefore putting more pressure on Democratic Members of Congress to vote with them. I could also, however, talk about the downside -- nominating candidates who are bad fits for their districts. Calibrating these things correctly can be tricky! But whatever activists choose to do, my general point over there was that it's not just the wins, but also the spin, that matter.
Sorry for the slow blogging around here so far today, but I should be on a regular pace this afternoon, more or less.
Aren't these two instances where that particular downside doesn't exist? Altmire lost to not-especially-liberal Critz, while Holden's more Democratic district is open to a move left. These seem to me like perfect opportunities to punish grandstanding apostacy and shore up the left flank of the caucus.
ReplyDeleteBoth links go to the Gingrich piece.
ReplyDeleteFixed, and thanks. Any suspicion that I'm just interested in bashing Newt as much as possible will be denied, denied, denied. With both hands. And may not even be true.
DeleteWhile PA 17 was made a pretty solidly Democratic district in redistricting and should go comfortably for Cartwright in November, Critz faces a tough race in PA 12. Critz won by only 51%-49% in an R+1 district in 2010, and now faces a well-funded Republican challenger in his new R+6 district, most of which he has not represented before.
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