Uncivil War: Conservatives to challenge a dozen GOP candidates

[cali]

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.

Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.

But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents — Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one — facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.

“I would say it’s the tip of the spear,” said Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. “We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today.”

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29057.html

[yurbud]

1. progressives should go and do likewise to DLCers

[cali]

2. No. We should pick our battles.

The pukes who want to challenge Simmons in CT and run a more right wing candidate are nuts.

[yurbud]

6. blue dogs are the battle we should pick as well as low-hanging Republican fruit

the trick is to do the opposite of what blue dogs do--they are often somewhat progressive on cultural issues but essentially republicans on economic and budget ones. They think money should only be given to the wealthy.

Instead, candidates should run who de-emphasize the cultural issues but be fierce economic populists to win back the lunch bucket crowd that listens to Rush Limbaugh but are screwed by the policies he recommends.

[DJ13]

4. Agreed

I know some Democrats are licking their lips at the possibility of "moderate" Republicans fleeing the GOP and joining our party, but that will only serve to move us further to the right until we become little more than Republican Lites.

We dont want that.

[rucky]

7. Yep. I think this trend is healthy.

flame away, folks!

[emulatorloo]

3. I wonder how this is all going to work out. I assume it will drive the Republicans farther to the

right so they can compete with Dick Armey's army of whackos.

[depakid]

5. The danger here of course is that if Dems keep pandering to the right- standing for nothing again

(as they will if recent history is any guide) then the next round of Republican control will be a bigger nightmare than the last.

If for no other reason than the fact that the Obama administration has been a miserable failure at bringing back the rule of law and holding the last lot accountable- whether it's been torturers, administration officials, banksters, fraudsters and other corporate crooks violating federal statutes.

To stave this off- the Democratic "leadership" had better return to their traditional values- and show grow some spine....