A lot of Democrats seem to be actively rooting for anti-establishment Republican Senate candidates Marco Rubio and Rand Paul to win their primaries in Florida and Kentucky respectively, on the assumption that their being nominated will allow Democrats to win those seats.
In this political climate it may be a case of be careful what you wish for though. The most recent Pollster.com trends show Charlie Crist leading Kendrick Meek by 10 points...but Marco Rubio leading Meek by 13 points. And the Kentucky general election numbers we'll release Wednesday show Rand Paul doing only one point worse than Trey Grayson against Jack Conway and three points worse against Dan Mongiardo.
In this climate voters are so sick of politics as usual that I'm not sure Rubio or Paul would be easier Republican nominees for a Democrat to knock off than their more mainstream opponents. And even if some Republican or independent voters do feel more uncomfortable with them than they would Crist or Grayson, is that going to outweigh their unhappiness with national Democrats in their voting decisions? We may have some interesting new Republican Senators in 2011.
Rand Paul is going to be tough to beat in the general election, when you consider that he has the Ron Paul "money bomb" fundraising machine behind him. He's already received contributions from tens of thousands of individual donors all across the country, just the tip of the iceberg. Wait until the race gets ugly and the Paulites really get fired up. Remember, they raised over $6 million for Ron Paul IN A SINGLE DAY just 2 years ago!
ReplyDeleteRand Paul and Marco Rubio indeed will be the Republican nominees... and it still won't help Democrats pick up the seats.
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