The New Face of the G.O.P.? Grizzled Veterans
WASHINGTON — Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party favorite and Republican Senate nominee from Delaware, is trailing badly in the polls, but her every utterance seems to win national attention. Meanwhile, John Hoeven, the three-term governor of North Dakota, remains largely unknown even though he is virtually certain to win a Senate seat next week — not to mention that he was recently named a finalist for the American Mustache Institute’s Mustached American of the Year award.
Insurgent challengers may be grabbing all the headlines in midterm elections this year, but most of the Republicans who are best positioned to snap up Senate seats currently held by Democrats are veteran politicians — and most of them have already served in Congress.
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The clear, if little noted, wealth of prior political experience among so many of the likely Republican victors in Senate races this year also highlights why voters often end up disappointed when they head to the polls eager for change in Washington. The overwhelming majority of winners on Tuesday in both the House and Senate races will be sitting incumbents, while relatively few will be neophytes with no background in politics.
Mustached American of the Year award? Okie dokie.
So, the Teanutties got pwned again. And you thought this was the year of the “anti-incumbent” wave. Hah! GOP stalwarts Dick Armey and Karl Rove brought all of the sign wavers into the fold, and it looks like it’s going to be business as usual.
You said you wanted change. You wanted to throw the bums out. You wanted fresh faces in Washington, an end to the status quo. Na. Ga. Ha. Pen.
It’s not just the Senate races. In Texas, "Gov. Rick Perry defying anti-incumbent mood.” Former California Governor Jerry Brown is still leading political newbie Meg Whitman. And let’s not even talk about that embarrassment in New York, Carl Paladino.
Of course, the folks with egg on their faces are the people who created this false “anti-incumbent wave” meme to begin with: the mainstream media. Guess they read something in the tea leaves that was never there.
