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Challengers Beware: NRSC Exists to Reelect Incumbents

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Photo Credit: APWhen Liz Cheney announced this week that she would challenge Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi in a Republican primary next year, the national party coalesced swiftly and unequivocally behind Enzi.

“The primary responsibility of the Senate campaign committee is to make certain that Republican incumbents are re-elected,” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said after Cheney’s announcement. “We’ll do everything we can to make certain that Mike Enzi has the help and support he needs from us.”

On the House side, however, there is no such institutional obligation to protect incumbents financially.

For House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., that hands-off policy could have deeply personal repercussions: Lucas is one of 10 House Republicans being targeted by the powerful conservative group Club For Growth, which hopes to replace moderate GOP members of Congress with more conservative candidates.

The NRCC won’t spend money to counter the influence of the Club and other outside groups in safe GOP districts — a policy that makes sense, Lucas said, because Republicans have limited money for the election cycle. Besides, he said, the party should not need to force its favored candidates on voters.

Read more from this story HERE.

Meet Republican-Independent-Democrat Charlie Crist: 2010 NRSC Pick for US Senate Switches Parties … Again

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was elected the state’s chief executive as a Republican and then ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as an independent, announced on Twitter on Friday night that he’s switching to the Democratic Party.

The announcement fanned speculation that Crist would seek to regain his old job from Republican Gov. Rick Scott in 2014.

Crist sent out a tweet that said, “Proud and honored to join the Democratic Party in the home of President (at)Barack Obama!”

The tweet included a photo of a smiling Crist and his wife Carole as he held up a Florida voter registration application. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Crist signed the papers changing his affiliation from independent to Democrat at a Christmas reception at the White House. President Barack Obama greeted the news with a fist bump.

“I’ve had friends for years tell me, ‘You know Charlie, you’re a Democrat and you don’t know it,’” Crist told the newspaper Friday night.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Establishment Warned Of Coming Backlash If They Meddle in 2014 Primaries

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photo credit: donkey hotey

A growing push for more establishment involvement in Republican primaries may put the party in a bind as the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) grapples with helping the best possible candidates get elected in primaries in 2014.

It’s a catch-22 for the party: Stay out, and risk untested candidates like Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) or Richard Mourdock of Indiana prevailing in the primaries and losing winnable races; or engage early and risk the kind of grassroots backlash that divided the party in many of the 2010 Senate races.

There is a consensus among a number of state Republican Party officials and grassroots groups that backlash is all but assured if the GOP establishment gets involved to the same extent as 2010.

“There’s always going to be fundamental dislike of the national party coming in to a local or a state race and saying, ‘This is who we want to pick,’” said Keli Carender, national grassroots coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots.

Tea Party backlash to establishment engagement in a number of Senate primaries during the 2010 cycle is part of what cost the party some easy wins that cycle, critics say.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gingrich Calls Out Rove and NRSC For Getting Rid of “Trouble-Maker” Akin

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized two major Republican campaign organizations for not continuing to back Republican candidate Todd Akin in the Missouri Senate race.

In an interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas, Gingrich called out GOP “establishment types” — Crossroads GPS super PAC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — for pulling funding from Akin, a congressman whose comments about “legitimate rape” caused a national uproar.

“If you applied the Todd Akin rule to Joe Biden, he’d be resigning the vice presidency once a week,” Gingrich said in Akin’s defense. “You have this bizarre double standard where Biden can say the weirdest things, and people just laugh and say, well, that’s just old Crazy Joe, you know; after all, he’s only vice president.”

“In Akin’s case, the establishment types saw a chance to get rid of a trouble-maker, replace him with somebody who’d be malleable, do it in the name of winning the election — and some of the things they said were quite extraordinary.”

“I mean, Karl Rove’s not-very-funny statement ‘If Akin gets murdered, don’t look for me,’ you know, I told Karl: in the age of Gabby Giffords, this isn’t funny, this isn’t a joke, you shouldn’t be able to say this in polite company.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Missouri’s Todd Akin is Now Up Four Points Against McCaskill

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The new poll out Monday showing that Todd Akin is leading Claire McCaskill in their U.S. Senate race comes at a pivotal time.

And it better be a renewed wake-up call to all the Missouri Democrats and McCaskill supporters who might think she’s going to walk to victory over Akin because of his asinine comments on abortion.

The poll, by Republican-leaning Wenzel Strategies, shows a 49 percent to 45 percent lead for Akin. That’s up just a bit from the 45-42 lead Wenzel had for Akin in late August.

In other words, Akin isn’t losing support despite weeks of negative attack ads on him by McCaskill and her forces.

The Akin camp thinks it’s getting a bounce from the revelations last week that McCaskill’s husband benefited from his investments in federally subsidized housing.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Low in Missouri Senate Race: McCaskill Ads Feature Rape Victims Attacking Akin

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By Stoyan Zaimov. Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill released a number of television ads attacking GOP senate challenger Todd Akin featuring rape survivors talking about their experiences and criticizing the representative’s previous comments on “legitimate rape.”

Akin’s comment in August that women’s bodies could prevent pregnancies in cases of “legitimate rape” stirred up a political firestorm for the Republican Party, causing a number of leaders, including GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to ask him to step down from his position. Akin refused, but apologized in a video for his remarks.

McCaskill’s ads bring the issue back to light, however, and feature three women sharing their rape experiences and the choices they made regarding taking emergency contraception, which Akin stands against. One of the ads features a mother who calls herself a “woman of faith,” and is a member of the Republican Party, who said that she is pro-life and decided not to take the contraception after she was attacked, but still supports a woman’s individual right to choose.

Representatives of Todd Akin did not respond to phone calls and email messages from The Christian Post by time of press, and the Missouri politician has not yet made a statement addressing the hard-hitting ads.

Akin has clearly stated his views on abortion, however, saying at an interview in August with Kansas City radio station KCMO: “As far as I’m concerned, the morning-after pill is a form of abortion. I think we just shouldn’t have abortion in this country.” Read more from this story HERE.

Gingrich calls out Rove super PAC, NRSC for abandoning Akin

By Paul Conner. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized two major Republican campaign organizations for not continuing to back Republican candidate Todd Akin in the Missouri Senate race.

In an interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas, Gingrich called out GOP “establishment types” — Crossroads GPS super PAC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — for pulling funding from Akin, a congressman whose comments about “legitimate rape” caused a national uproar.

“If you applied the Todd Akin rule to Joe Biden, he’d be resigning the vice presidency once a week,” Gingrich said in Akin’s defense. “You have this bizarre double standard where Biden can say the weirdest things, and people just laugh and say, well, that’s just old Crazy Joe, you know; after all, he’s only vice president.”

“In Akin’s case, the establishment types saw a chance to get rid of a trouble-maker, replace him with somebody who’d be malleable, do it in the name of winning the election — and some of the things they said were quite extraordinary.”

“I mean, Karl Rove’s not-very-funny statement ‘If Akin gets murdered, don’t look for me,’ you know, I told Karl: in the age of Gabby Giffords, this isn’t funny, this isn’t a joke, you shouldn’t be able to say this in polite company.” Read more from this story HERE.