candidate recruitment

I think we are all well aware of the botched job party leaders did in northern NY for the McHugh vacancy election;  Stevie Wonder could have seen what was likely to occur and did occur.  Perhaps the Republican activist base needs to ascertain whether we have a breakdown in candidate recruitment and selection for key House races; and determine how to fix this before the process for the '10 cycle goes off the rails.

In a "Back to the Future" approach, I thought back to a prior election cycle when local activists decided to screen their own candidates and put forward someone whom they thought would give the Republicans a good chance to win a tough seat.  To wit, California 12, 1946. 

As Voorhis served his fifth term in the House, Republicans searched for a candidate capable of defeating him.[9] Local Republicans formed what became known as the "Committee of One Hundred" (officially, the "Candidate and Fact-Finding Committee") to select a candidate with broad support in advance of the June 1946 primary election.

The Committee tried to persuade prominent local leaders to jump into the fray, and sounded out former district native Gen. George Patton to ascertain his interest. Having whiffed on such a prominent candidate, they then interviewed a number of other hopefuls, and decided the one that impressed them the most was a young lawyer in the Navy, Richard Nixon.

  On November 1, 1945, he flew to California to meet influential Republicans and give a speech at a Committee meeting. The meeting was advertised throughout the district and was open to any potential candidate. However, the advertisements for the meeting noted that Nixon would be flying in to speak.[15] A number of potential rivals also showed up at the meeting on November 2, 1945, including a local judge and assemblyman. Nixon, who spoke last, was "electrifying", according to one Committee member.[16] When the Committee met to vote on November 28, Nixon received over two-thirds of the vote, which was then made unanimous. Committee chairman Roy Day immediately notified the victor of the Committee's endorsement.

This process was important to Republican success that year as California held a primary with an early cutoff date and a former Republican congressman was seeking tp return to office on an openly bigoted platform. He decided to run as a third party candidate and attracted little support.

So, what does suburban L.A. in the last century have to do with now? Well, what it shows is that in that election prominent Republicans decided they could not rely on party bosses to find candidates and anoint a nominee. Nor could they take their chances on whoever decided on their own hook to enter the primary. and hope the voters would give a credible general election candidate a pluraility of the vote. No, they decided to get the process moving themselves.

Perhaps the Republican rank-and-file needs to establish its own "Committee of 100" groups of prominent non-office holders in districts around the country.  It's pretty obvious the smoke filled room didn't work very well in NY 23, and if the party thinks "certified pre-owned candidate recruitment" is the answer, we are likely to be very disappointed.

We need to find the new type of candidate who is articulate, independent and in touch with his community.  If you don't look, you won't find.

There's a must read over @ the New Ledger which I think makes a point missed by the Beltway brain trust.

Yet the assumption that these protesters are right-wingers — or as others have accused, fake grassroot anger, or “astroturf” — seems a vast oversimplification. While we hardly have data on the people who have been attending these townhalls and shouting down members attempting to sell health care insurance reform, anecdotal evidence indicates that this is hardly manufactured dissent. Obama’s plan is hardly popular, and many Americans who are not Republican or conservative are opposed to the package and nervous about its outcome.

Domenech makes the point that this appears much more to be a sudden resurgence of the Ross Perot phenomena than any Republican party inspired movement. I tend to agree. Recent polls show that Republican party identification is still rather low; it's been deterioration in Democratic support over recent months that's kept the gap from widening. To the extent any national figures have stoked the flames, they are media hosts like Limbaugh, Hannity , Beck and Levin and not Republican elected officials.  And the "feel" of the crowds doesn't reflect the losing late decade Republican coalition of preachers and lobbyists.

These protesters aren’t really fans of either party (George W. Bush is no more popular at Tea Parties than Barack Obama), but driven by a strong sense — and basic American ideas of liberty — that the government shouldn’t be intruding on their lives, taking their money and giving it to companies that don’t deserve it, telling them which doctor to go to, and generally mismanaging things.

Indeed, the only contemporary Republican political figure who seems to be aligned with this inchoate anti-establishment vibe is Sarah Palin, who as we are well aware marches to her own drummer.  While Palin is often pigeonholed by the MSM as a 'social conservative champion", much of the energy she brought to the McCain campaign during its brief burst of success was appealing to these sorts of voters who had tuned out the Republican establishment.

These voters are "middle American radicals"--distrustful of big government but usually skeptical of movement conservatism or corporate Republicanism.  I suspect that one will find a rather substantial number sat out the 2008 election, and clearly they decided to abstain from the 2006 midterms in droves, costing us both houses of Congress. 

So here's the challenge:

if those on the right aren’t able to present a strong, coherent alternative, they will be unable to rally these Perotistas to their side. In 1994, the Republicans were successful at this, combining a package of populist governmental reforms with outrage against irresponsible governance to attain victory — but more recently, they’ve given no signs of having this capability. Whether they can recapture it, and claim enough of the independent middle to win, will be a very challenging thing indeed.

And what are Republicans doing to harness this energy for the 2010 elections?  Nominating a bunch of "certified pre-owned candidates"

The latest example is from Colorado, where it appears failed 2006 gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez is about to challenge appointed Democratic senator Bennet. 

Beauprez appears to be a perfectly satisfactory guy; he won a swing House district twice and seems to have done a credible job in Congress.  But how much pizazz are we getting running a guy whose been around awhile and lost his last statewide race by double digits?  Maybe the alternatives haven't shown to be able to get it done, but I'd like to think we'd do better than a "round up the usual suspects" approach to nominating candidates in this unconventional election cycle  

Same for Roy Blunt or Charlie Crist. Are we giving ourselves our best shot in 2010 by running old time corporate Republicans? And let's assume they do win. Are these the sorts of people that are going to inspire a new generation to become active Republicans?

Lemme throw a race where we should be thinking outside the box. Nevada. Harry Reid has anemic approval numbers but all the prominent Republican officeholders of late have legal problems or think they'll wait for John Ensign to step aside in 2012.

Fine. Why don't we look to a nonpolitician to run against Reid. Make this the classic outsider vs. the classic insider.

Half of Nevada's voters weren't around when Reid got into the Senate. Nevada is a state built on gambling, this seems like a good bet to me.

Or will we find the last political warhorse who lost a statewide race or hold some obscure legislative post and hand the keys off to him?

Stop looking for old jalopies. The Republican party is not going to thrive in the future running its own version of "cash for clunkers". Time for the bright new models!  

A lot of old time Republican senators have decided to hang up their cleats, or may decide to do so in the coming months.

Already deciding to retire are Mel Martinez (Florida); Sam Brownback (Kansas) and this week Kit Bond (Missouri).

There is also a rumor on RedState that Ohio's George Voinovich may step down at term's end.    

All things being equal, we are usually better off running an incumbent, but unless we adopt a Weekend at Bernie's  strategy the day will come to replace incumbents.

The future of the Republican party will depend on who gets to step up in these races.

Another week in Navy Blue CT