GOP Falls Short in PA-12
The GOP's loss in the special election to fill Pennsylvania's 12th congressional seat is a reminder that the new quasi-Tea Party Republican party still has to learn how to translate popular discontent into electoral victory.
Yesterday, I predicted that Republican Tim Burns – given the national mood, the closeness of the polls, and my personal assessment of his momentum on the ground – would manage to squeak by his opponent, Democrat Mark Critz, in Pennsylvania’s rural but heavily Democratic 12th District. Now I get to eat crow – as some of our commenters have already pointed out, Critz “rather handily” managed to keep a Democrat in the seat formerly occupied by Rep. John Murtha, who died suddenly in March. Critz’s victory, had it been just any special election, would not have mattered more than any one vote out of 435 ever does. However, PA-12 was the field where both the DCCC and NRCC decided they would do battle; both sides declaring it a midterm bellwether that would either vindicate the new Republican populism or predict a GOP snatching defeat from the jaws of victory come November.
PA-12 certainly had one quirk that isn’t really applicable beyond its borders: the titanic legacy of John Murtha. Critz belonged to Murtha’s machine and largely ran on his legacy, and it’s impossible to know how much he benefited from that association. But beyond that, PA-12 is precisely the kind of district the GOP needs to win in order to realize the Congressional realignment it is so brazenly predicting.
A pro-Tea Party friend of mine tried to downplay Critz’s victory by saying that he ran as a conservative, even trying to outflank Burns on the right. So, her argument goes, it doesn’t matter that he won, because even that is a vindication of the populist ideology. Maybe so, but the GOP can expect practically all of the Democrats in similar districts – Blue Dogs to the last man – to distance themselves as far from the liberal, cosmopolitan Obama-Pelosi image as they possibly can. The GOP conventional wisdom holds that, given the choice between a “fake conservative” (a Blue Dog Democrat or moderate Republican) and a “real conservative,” voters will choose the latter. PA-12 shows that, to quote Gershwin, “it ain’t necessarily so.”
The GOP’s objectives in districts such as this are simple and straightforward: first, they need to link Democratic candidates with the national party and the Obama administration. Obama would hardly be popular in rural, blue-collar districts at the best of times; with a national anti-incumbent sentiment, he’s a veritable millstone around the neck of his compatriots in conservative districts. Though they certainly tried hard, the NRCC failed to do this in PA-12. Critz’s association with Murtha was both stronger and more favorable.
Secondly, PA-12 is a lesson in managing expectations for the GOP. We got greedy, trusting in a made-for-Fox-News narrative about how the GOP would come riding back on a wave of anti-administration anger in districts that, despite their conservatism, are 2-1 Democratic. With all the crowing about taking up to 100 seats in the House in November, the GOP is setting itself up for a very, very rude awakening in November if/when that unrealistic goal isn’t met. Optimism, sure. A little red meat for the base. But if there’s one problem with the GOP leadership these days, it’s that they seem to believe their own propaganda (see Bachmann, Michele). They would do well to remember that talking smack beforehand only works if you win the game.
Of course, the problem with political narratives, in general, is that they’re often based on so little. Five thousand votes the other way, and we’d all be writing about how PA-12, just like Chris Christie’s win in New Jersey and Scott Brown’s (remember him?) in Massachusetts, portends the inevitable GOP midterm landslide. So, mea culpa. I was wrong. We really won’t know whether the new quasi-Tea Party GOP will be able translate popular discontent into electoral victory until November, nearly six months away.
It’s a long, long, way off.