It’s time for the annual ritual on and around Capitol Hill. New candidates from districts all over descend. A behind the scenes power player usually sponsors them. Using their personal networks, they ask 15, sometimes 20 lobbyists, pollsters/operatives, or the equivalent to a meet and greet. Sometimes a powerful CoS for a Senator will make the sponsoring invite for a House seat, for example. Others might have a politically prominent organization host.
There’s no fundraising, no money. It’s all about giving a favored candidate face time. If all goes well, candidate gets access to the informal but powerful True Believer network. Doors open to wedge issue groups. From there the candidate hopes buzz begins. With this progress and fate agrees then seemingly spontaneously, the candidate ‘is discovered’ by the Cooks, Todds and Politico denizens as a ‘comer’. The higher level plate dinners kick in.
All of this is like the weather. Indifferent to legislative armageddons, socialist fascist coup d’etats or historic progress. Candidates have been coming though informally for over a month. The pace will only pick up.
What’s different this time is the Tea Party phenomenon. Listening to novice/new candidates make their pitch and how they position themselves either for or against often telling. We’re amused to hear Republican veterans advising new candidates to ignore the NRCC – and to blow off the NRCC’s televised dinner.
Still, in a season when tout le monde say the GOP should do well in November, after a gathering we were struck by the gloom of one fairly influential behind the scenes Republican veteran. He’s made a point of meeting as many new candidates as possible. His assessment? In what should be a time of good hunting ‘I’ve never seen a weaker recruitment class.’ His critique was as an operative assessing basic candidate skills, not ideological purity. A number of heads nodded in agreement.
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Comment says
Small example but a classic of vacuous punditry – totally meaingless gossip – This actually is ‘petty gossip.’
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/is-larry-summers-leaving/38461/
Comment says
Adelman – poseur and fraudulent Shakespearean:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-adelman/pranks-gone-too-far-in-sh_b_524859.html
Comment says
How about this cheesy trend – David Brooks invoking Sandra Bullock and Bret Stephens going after L. Gaga
Comment says
Really it amazes what a tool Tweety is – The guy does not do any reporting and he doesn’t read any books and just sort of spouts nonsense – If anyone watched him tonight they’d think Sarkozy gave a snide anti American speech at Columbia on Monday – But if anyone watched Sarkozy actually speak they would have seen a foreign leader giving one of the most pro American speeches in memory.
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Mike Allen is tough:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbfiikFXibg
Comment says
We get a headache when the whole mid-east peace stuff is talked about.
Comment says
Just heard on the radio the clownish Bill Donahue bill himself as the leading “civil rights” leader in the USA – so thought this was an amusing sample of his great work. A real class act.
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=755
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http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/03/26/phony_eric_cantor_story
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Maddow messed up what could have been much better – Liberals are not too good at sloganeering. Too wordy – We could have made a better ad that would have had Brown’s pals squeaking and squealing. http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/03/rachel-maddow-strikes-back-at-scott.html
Comment says
Turns out our suspicions were right – Cantor was implying he was the target of a violent attack – but it had nothing to do with him. L!
Comment says
More classic Romney insincerity – he is so over the top with this problem – and Newt is not convincing when he tries to walk back his recent gaff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6DrH6P9OC0&feature=player_embedded
Comment says
Gotta give Frum credit for his rebranding job – burned bridges and getting fired from NRO and now AEI lend credibility.
Comment says
Why so weak – because the party has become too anti intellectual – In an over the top way, with lightweights on TV, birthers, and rustics who cannot sit still and keep their trap shut during a speech.