No Runny Eggs

John Hawkins once again took the temperature of a bunch of right-of-center bloggers, this time on the just-concluded (for the most part, at least) 2010 elections. Since I was one of those who participated, and some of the answers require an explanation beyond just a checkmark in one of a few pre-worded answers, I’ll explain my answers. Some of them aren’t exactly the most-popular among the other 69 people who answered the call, some of them are; you’ll have to go over to Right Wing News to find out how many of us said what:

• Out of the following people and groups, which do you think was the most valuable player in the election cycle? The NRCC – This one is pretty much by default because the Republican State Leadership Committee, which had the biggest day in gaining a unified majority of state legislatures, wasn’t on the list. Out of the rest, only the NRCC managed to meet (non-inflated) pre-election expectations without having at least one significant (non-inflated) clunker.
• Out of the following people and groups, which do you think did the most disappointing job during the election cycle? The NRSC – See Charlie Crist, Arlen Specter, Liza Murkywater…er, Lisa Murkowski, Carly Fiorina,…. The Republicans that won, almost to a person, won in spite of the NRSC, and in several cases, to spite the NRSC.
• How would you rate the impact of the Tea Party during the election cycle? Generally positive – Yes, there were a couple clunkers of candidates that came out of the Tea Party Movement (cough…Christine O’Donnell…cough), but for every clunker, there were several winners (Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker). Further, without the Tea Party Movement, it certainly would have been possible-to-likely for the Democrats to hang onto the majority in the House and deny the Republicans clear control of the majority of the state legislatures.
• Do you think the Tea Party and/or Sarah Palin and/or Jim DeMint cost the GOP the Senate? no – Face it, folks – we weren’t going to get to a net gain of 10 in the Senate this time around. Harry Reid had the casino union vote locked up in Nevada, California, Connecticut and New York are all too far gone (despite what Jazz Shaw thinks for the latter), and not even Mike Castle was going to win in Delaware if the exit polls were right. The only places I can think of where the Republicans could have won with proper NRSC support are Alaska (where the soon-to-be-turncoat Murkowski managed to run what appears to be a successful write-in campaign with effectively no NRSC opposition), West Virginia (where the NRSC, frankly, fucked up royally with the “hick” ad), and Washington (you think the $8 million in NRSC money that went to Fiorina could have been better spent for Dino Rossi?).
• Which of the following would you say is a more apt description of the Democrats’ historic election losses? People voted against the Democrats – Had this been a WisPolitics temperature check rather than a RWN one, I would have gone with the second option of people voting for the Republicans. However, unlike Wisconsin’s Republicans, I cannot honestly say that Republicans on a national level realize they need to be the Party of Reagan.
• Do you think Michael Steele should be retained as the Chairman of the RNC?Not sure – What matters more, results or gaffes? Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything; it is the only thing.”
• Do you think John Cornyn should be retained as the head of the NRSC? No – See the answer to the second question.
• Do you think Pete Sessions should be retained as head of the NRCC? Yes – It’s kind of hard to argue against the largest pickup in 62 years.
• Do you think John Boehner should be the next Speaker of the House or should he be replaced? Replace him Let me put it this way – the one time Republican House members could have actually derailed a plank of the POR Agenda, 8 of them caved to let Cap-and-Tax pass. Fortunately, it was one of the few times Mitch McConnell didn’t need to keep more than 35 of his caucus together in the Senate to derail things (more on him in the next question).
• Do you think Mitch McConnell should continue on as the Senate Minority Leader or should they replace him? Replace him – If I’m going to out John Boehner as a failure of a leader, how much more should I out McConnell as a failure of a leader? Even before we found out Stuart Smalley stole the Minnesota Senate election, Shoebox said that there was no difference between 57 Democrat Senators and 60. Guess what – he was right!