Another National Congressional Election
This past fall, Howard Dean said that the Democrats would come up with a list of things that “every Democrat could run on.” Last week, Dean delivered on that promise. The bad news is that the list is a bomb. Still, next fall’s election will be a nationalized election in at least one respect. It will be a referendum on which party can be trusted with national security issues. At this point, it isn’t looking good for the Democrats.
All week long, the Special Report roundtables have focused on Dean’s outlanding statements in San Antonio and John Murtha’s response to President Bush’s speech, with Mara Liasson making the claim that this isn’t a national election so it isn’t likely to hurt democrats like it would in a presidential election year. To a point, she’s right. There’s alot of safe House seats across the country.
Where she’s wrong, though, is in the Senate and in a few competitive House races. Already we see Mark Kennedy going aggressively after this still silent Democratic challenger here in Minnesota, asking them why they haven’t spoken out about Dean’s outlandish statements to WOAI radio station in San Antonio. As of last night, Amy Klobuchar and Patty Wetterling, the most likely candidates for the Democrats, have been silent. Earlier this week, I wrote about this in The Silence is Deafening. Their silence is still deafening and it’s showing. I suspect that this will be one of the major themes that Mark Kennedy will highlight next fall.
I also suspect that he’ll run on the issue of keeping taxes low and that other Republicans running for open Senate seats, like Michael Steele in Maryland, will follow suit. This is another winner for Republicans. That’s how you win ‘national’ congressional elections.
There’s a lesson for the GOP in this: Embrace your best issues and not run away from them once you get to Washington, especially if the Beltway crowd says that they’re not that important.
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Michelle Malkin has her favorite Dean photo.
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing