BY JOHN FEEHERY

Reprinted from the Feeherytheory.com

Erik Erickson has become famous for his visceral hatred of the Republican Party, and of course earlier this year he was immediately hired by CNN to represent the Republican view on various shows.  Erickson let the cat out of the bag when discussing the Delaware primary results last night.  He admitted that Christine O’Donnell, the winner, has no chance of winning the general election.  Erickson then admitted that he really didn’t want Republicans to win control of the Senate.

I call this the loser strategy.  These Tea Party zealots seem to hate Barack Obama so much that they want him to keep control of the Senate.  They want Obama to fail so completely, they want to make sure that Senate Democrats set the agenda, chair all the committees, authorize the funding for all investigations, schedule all of the confirmation hearings, schedule the floor and pretty much give the President the run of the upper chamber.

Perhaps that is why the Tea Party worked hard to nominate Sharon Angle.  They thought that Angle, who has some pretty unconventional political positions, had pretty much no chance of winning.  I initially thought it was Harry Reid who set it up to have Angle win the primary, so that he would have an easy ride.  But now, I understand it was the Tea Party all along.   They want Reid to stay as Majority Leader.  The bitter irony is that Reid is so desperately unpopular, Angle still might win.

The Tea Party believes that only by destroying the Republican Party it takes it over (or something like that, I guess).

O’Donnell is not a serious candidate.  She doesn’t have the experience, the temperament, the character, or the ability to be United States Senator.  She is an embarrassment.  But then again, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, and Eric Erickson already knew that.  They knew that she couldn’t win.  And yet, because they hate Barack Obama so much, they have decided to make the courageous decision to make certain that the President’s party still maintains control of the United States Senate.

It really is a selfless act by DeMint. The other two are just political gadflies, media creations, complete jokers.  But DeMint is actually a Senator.  He could have been a Chairman or at least a subcommittee Chairman.   But maybe he doesn’t want to be a Chairman.  Maybe he doesn’t actually want to pass legislation to balance the budget, reform the tax code, tackle the entitlement problems that face this nation, or actually solve problems of excessive government spending. Maybe he just wants to be a backbencher, an opposer, a guy who votes no and gets on with his day.

Maybe I am wrong.  Maybe O’Donnell does somehow win the general election.  Maybe she doesn’t completely embarrass herself when she arrives in the Senate.  Maybe she will turn out to be a great Senator who somehow can get to the serious work of balancing the budget and solving problems for the American people.

But, I don’t think I am wrong.  And I think that O’Donnell is going to get creamed in the general election in Delaware.

I thought it was the goal of Republicans to elect more Republicans to both the House and Senate to somehow make it harder for President Obama to enact his tax and spend agenda.  Now, I am learning from Republican-haters like Erik Erickson that that is not their goal at all.  Their goal is to somehow nominate as many losers as possible in the hopes that somehow the Democrats keep control of the Senate.   And somehow, that will send the proper message to the President and his team.

That is what I call a loser strategy.

More lessons learned

Here are some more lessons learned from the primaries last night:

Conservatives aren’t going to vote for a candidate based only on electability: The principal reason Castle gave to primary voters was that O’Donnell wasn’t electable. That may be true, but it was also completely irrelevant. If there is one thing that needs to be relearned, it is that you need to give voters a reason to vote for you beyond the fact that you can win in a general election.

Each election is unique: Just because a candidate has won in the past does not mean that a candidate can win in the future. Especially in a change year like this one, incumbency can be more of a burden than a blessing.

Grass roots matter: Say what you will about Christine O’Donnell. She had a mobilized, passionate following, despite her obvious flaws. Castle’s supporters may have been just as passionate, but they didn’t come out in the numbers necessary to win. Especially in small states (only around 50,000 came out to vote in the Delaware primary), every vote counts. 

Sarah Palin was not the reason O’Donnell won. Neither was Jim DeMint. Palin also endorsed Brian Murphy in Maryland (who got trounced) and Kelly Ayotte (who may or may not win). This election was all about Mike Castle. People didn’t vote for O’Donnell (how could they?). They voted against Mike Castle. 

When the voters send a message, listen to it before the election:Mike Castle is a good guy, but he didn’t get the clear message that was sent to Bob Bennett and Lisa Murkowski: Move right in the primary. Obviously, that was a hard thing for Castle to do, because he wanted to be ideologically consistent. But such consistency didn’t bother John McCain, who embraced the hard-line approach on the immigration issue, an issue where he was the leading compromiser only two years before. 

Closed primaries kill moderates: This was true not only in Delaware. It was also true in D.C., where Adrian Fenty got his hat handed to him by political hack Vincent Gray. Closed primaries are anti-democratic, anti-independent, and a boon to the most extreme candidates. 

The political establishment is not just overrated; it is hated: People blame Washington politicians (on both sides) for the mess we are in. So why would they take their advice on how to vote? Well, they won’t. That was the case with Mike Castle, Rick Lazio and a bunch of other candidates this year. Sometimes getting an endorsement from a well-known establishment politician works. This is not one of those times.

Editor’s note: John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. He is president of Feehery Group, a Washington-based advocacy.