Thank Rubio & Paul for Majority Leader Reid

The blame for the GOP failure to take the Senate lies not only with the losing tea party candidates but also with the victorious ones, such as Rubio and Paul.

The ill-advised insurgency against the Republican establishment has clearly cost the GOP control of the Senate. While the victory in the House is very impressive, the serious Republican failure in the Senate can be summarized in three simple words: “Majority Leader Reid” -- not only should he not have a majority, he should not even be in the Senate.

While a lot has already been said about throwing away winnable Senate seats in Delaware,Colorado and Nevada, the blame for that failure lies not only with the losing anti-establishment candidates but also with the victorious ones – such as Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. I pointed out before that anti-establishment campaigns might have a negative impact on other races. While as a rule establishment candidates (from Charlie Crist on one end of the country to Lisa Murkowski on the other) were perfectly capable of winning without any out-of-state financial support, the Republican primary voters who rejected them for no good reason often refused to put their money where their mouth was and to adequately finance the candidates they had just nominated. Thus a lot of outside resources had to be diverted from other – often better – uses. I believe it is obscene that in a year when many liberal Democrats (such as Barbara Boxer) were vulnerable for the first – and probably last! – time in their political careers the GOP spent a fortune on ads trashing Republican governor Charlie Crist and Republican senator Lisa Murkowski. Now please excuse me for a moment while I fantasize about what could have been if Dino Rossi’s campaign had had another million dollars…