No matter how you slice it, the race for control of the U.S. Senate is going to be awfully close. But there’s one trend I’ve noticed recently — the stark difference between the parties and their respective primary battles.
There are 34 Senate races this year, but less than half of those are really competitive. Eight races are open seats — which all-but necessarily makes them competitive — offering both parties the opportunity to tear each other apart in bruising primaries.
Moreover, there are two races where a well-funded Senate incumbent is facing a challenge from his or her own party. Two may not seem like a terribly large number, but recent history shows what an anomaly it is to even have one race where an incumbent senator has to fight for a party’s nomination. In the last three election cycles combined, only one incumbent faced a primary challenge — Bob Smith in New Hampshire (who lost). With that in mind, two in one year is very unusual.
But looking over the landscape, an interesting pattern emerges. All the hostility and in-fighting is limited to one side — the Republican side — which happens to be the party of blind loyalty and Reagan’s 11th Commandment.
The Dems, who have grown accustomed to vicious in-fighting for generations, have suddenly learned to play nice. Out of all 34 Senate races, only one has a half-way heated primary race — Florida — and even there, the most bitter rivalry is between Alex Penelas and Peter Deutsch, neither of whom are in the lead (polls show Betty Castor leading the field).
What happened? How did the Dems suddenly become the unified party while Republicans battle it out for the ideological future of their party? I think at least two factors are at play.
One, Bill Clinton dramatically changed the party. Pre-90s Dems were fragmented between competing regions, ideologies, and agendas. Clinton won and rooted the party behind a center-left agenda that enjoyed broad national support. As a result, the Dem presidential candidate has enjoyed more votes than the GOP candidate in the last three elections in a row — a feat not accomplished by the Dems since the 1940s.
Two, Republicans look a lot like pre-90s Dems. Centrists and ideologues see each other as fierce adversaries, incapable of peaceful co-existence. Bush is helping the far-right wing feel emboldened with a conservative agenda that makes moderates feel unwelcome and out-of-place. Just ask Jim Jeffords.
As a result, nearly every statewide campaign is another opportunity for candidates to stake their claim to the party’s “true” goals. Consider, for example, the ongoing Republican Senate primaries, where some of these characters really seem to hate each other.
* In Colorado, Peter Coors made a late-entrance, challenging former Rep. Bob Schaffer and dividing the state party and congressional delegation.
* In Georgia, three major candidates — Rep. Johnny Isakson, Rep. Mac Collins, and businessman Herman Cain — are battling it out in a frenzied primary.
* In South Carolina, former Gov. David Beasley, former state Attorney General Charlie Condon, and Rep. Jim DeMint are engaged in a heated three-way primary race, each saying they’re more right wing than the other guy.
* In Oklahoma, Dem Rep. Brad Carson is looking strong, while the GOP is divided between Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys and former Rep. Tom Coburn.
* In Florida, the nation’s strangest state, the field of Republican candidates has passed double-digits and keeps getting bigger. Among the 11 (yes, 11) candidates are former HUD Secretary Mel Martinez, former Rep. Bob McCollum, a few state legislators, a few businessmen, a few businesswomen, and DC-based litigation-addict Larry Klayman.
And that’s just in the open-seat primaries. Things are really contentious in Alaska and Pennsylvania where incumbent senators are facing challenges from other Republicans. In both instances, the party’s far-right wing believes the incumbent isn’t conservative enough.
In Alaska, former state Sen. Mike Miller announced last week that he would challenge incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, saying he doesn’t see where she and the Dems “vary that much on the issues.”
Miller, from North Pole, said he was the “trusted conservative” alternative to Murkowski and Democratic candidate Tony Knowles.
And then there’s Pennsylvania. As of right now, the most animated political fight in America isn’t between Bush and Kerry; it’s between Rep. Pat Toomey (R) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R).
Specter, a relative moderate who has served Pennsylvania in the Senate for 24 years, was supposed to be safe. He’s no Linc Chafee or Olympia Snowe, but Specter is pro-choice and is cautious about excessive tax cuts. For Republicans, that’s a problem.
Toomey, with a lot of help from the ultra-conservative Club for Growth, decided to capitalize on the fact that the GOP is shifting further and further to the right, where Specter’s name is synonymous with “Democrat-lite.” Toomey’s campaign was once dismissed as a quixotic novelty, but no one’s dismissing it now.
After months of aggressive attacks labeling Specter a “liberal,” Toomey has made this race a toss-up. A poll released this week shows Specter’s once-enormous lead down to just 5 points — 49% to 44%.
All of this may be the answer to Democratic prayers. Especially in a swing state like Pennsylvania, Republicans’ hostility for all-things moderate sends the message we want voters to hear — that the GOP is a party that has abandoned the center altogether.
In a 51-49 Senate, the Republican attacks against themselves could be the one thing the Dems need to take back the majority.