The GOP in 2014: where are the candidates?

Insanity has a few descriptions out there... one of the most popular is due to its ease of recall for those defining it:  doing the same thing, over and over, while expecting a different outcome.

One has to wonder: did the GOP learn anything from the debacle of 2014?

Where, for example, is the fully funded, year-round minority outreach program at the state level?

Nowhere?  Wow.  Must not have noticed that whites are the minority in this state, or soon will be. That's really going to increase minority participation in the GOP... right?

A lot is at stake for the new regime at both the state and local levels.  But the GOP generally counts itself among those who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

As I stated when they took over, there is precisely one measure of success that matters... success at the polls.

They have advantages at all levels: the democrats are as damaged a brand as 1994 and that was a bloodbath.

Yet, one has to wonder: if this upcoming cycle is completed and there's no substantial change in the outcomes, then what?

The party in power is crippled from the top down.  Their policies are an unmitigated disaster.  The GOP should be feeling like there's a test coming up and they already have the answers.

My fear?

That they can't find the room where the test is being given.

A competent local party would have had a campaign long since up and running against Steve Stuart, who amounts to low-hanging fruit in the upcoming cycle, an easy win.

Where is that candidate?

Nowhere that I've seen.

The local GOP is under a microscope now because of their multiple failures during the city council races.  The local newspaper, staying true to form, wrote as if the left was paying them by the word, but their footprint is so small (and should be smaller) that should have made and likely will make no difference in the future.

The lines of demarcation are now, essentially, sunk in concrete.

The GOP cannot win in the 49th.

The democrats cannot win in the 14th, 18th or 20th.

The toss-up district is the 17th.

The democrats also cannot win in the WA-03 for Congress, either.

Stuart has done such an utterly abysmal job in ignoring the people of this county that he should be easy pickings.  He would not survive any serious GOP challenge.

Executive summary?

Candidates are needed against Stuart. Lynda Wilson against Stonier will be interesting and one of the two races to watch, in that Lynda has run the local GOP for the past year plus.

Stonier's anti-CRC votes will make her a more difficult target.  But the democrats have been a disaster and that provides her with some vulnerability, particularly if Wilson focuses on a campaign where-in she joins in taking a leadership role in killing the CRC, the local 3rd rail of politics that most democrats insist on embracing... to their political detriment.

With the exception of the Stuart/Stonier races, nothing else can change, absent a scandal or death.

Because of Stonier's CRC votes, I rate that race as a slight lean to Wilson.  Had Stonier voted with the rest of the democrat herd, she'd be crushed.  But the gender advantage (Women will cross multiple lines of demographics to vote their own gender, much like minorities will do the same to vote their own race) is neutralized here, so the deciding factors are going to be competence in campaigning and the damaged democrat brand.

Stuart is dead man walking to any competent campaign.  He told his communications director, Lefty Lou Brancaccio, that he would announce a decision in "mid-January."  Well, we're past that.  So, is Stuart just doing what he does... you know, lie?

Memo to the local GOP: the longer it takes to get a candidate, the weaker you look.  And their failure in this regard?  Astounding.

Just sayin'.

As the local Benton/Rivers debacle has shown, no one eats their young like GOP politicians who are willing to cripple the efforts of their party in return for personal animus, real or perceived, risking everything over a fit of pique.  Imagine how much stronger the GOP would be if the eye could be kept on the goal as opposed to self-enhancement, either real... or perceived.

When the shouting is over, I expect that every GOP office holder in Clark County will still be a GOP office holder this time next year.

I also expect that the GOP will fail to take the US Senate, though they will gain seats; they won't run the table, a requirement to take over.  They will likely increase the number of seats in the US House.

In an exchange yesterday with someone attempting to force me to justify my lack of faith in our cardboard cutout of a congresswoman, I asked the question: based on the pattern of the House caving to the Obama agenda every 10 minutes or so, what difference does GOP control of the House or the Senate make?

I've yet to receive an answer.