The winners in spite of themselves

Bob Novak writes of the Republican leadership and the election:

Steve Moore, the feisty free market economist who is Club for Growth’s president, concentrated on helping aggressive reformers [Tom] Coburn and DeMint. Both had to wade through fierce Republican primary opposition and were not favorites of the GOP’s Washington establishment. The Oklahoma Republican power structure was aligned against Coburn, as was the House Republican leadership that did not remember him fondly from his congressional days. Speaker Dennis Hastert publicly dismissed Coburn as a probable loser in the same category as Alan Keyes, who finished 43 percentage points behind in Illinois….

The outcome: Coburn won by the landslide proportion of 12 percentage points.

One can’t help but think that Toomey would have won in Pennsylvania, had the Washington Republicans not weighed in on behalf of Specter. Remember, conservative Republicans, the fact that they’re wearing your colors doesn’t necessarily mean they’re on your team. Right now, the words “conservative” and “Republican” are seen as synonymous. As Jonah Goldberg rightly predicted this week, that is unlikely to continue to be the case.

Posted by Vox Day.