NOT EITHER/OR

G.O.P. Senate Bid May Take the Fall, for Bush's Sake (RAYMOND HERNANDEZ, 6/30/03, NY Times)

Gov. George E. Pataki and the Republican machinery he controls are determined to rally a huge voter turnout for President Bush next year, in a bid meant to bring New York Republicans the sort of national stature that has eluded them since the days of Nelson A. Rockefeller.

But in an intriguing subplot, Mr. Pataki and his advisers appear to have all but abandoned plans to seriously challenge Senator Charles E. Schumer, a popular Democrat, mindful that it would mobilize the opposition and thus undermine Mr. Bush's prospects in New York. [...]

[R]epublicans say the sudden shift in the party's priorities reflects the surprising level of support that Mr. Bush has picked up in New York, a heavily Democratic state that no Republican presidential candidate has won since Ronald Reagan swept it in 1984.

A poll recently released by Marist College, for example, showed that 58 percent of voters who were surveyed in New York rated Mr. Bush's job performance as good or excellent.

But as much as anything else, the strategy also underscores another hard political reality that New York Republicans have been forced to reckon with: the early electoral strength of Mr. Schumer, who has already amassed nearly $15 million in his war chest and whose job-approval rating is at an impressive 58 percent in recent polls.

This is on the one hand the classic mistake that the GOP made in 1980 and 1994 and, on the other, the mistake that Ronald Reagan made in 1984 and one would hope that Republicans and Mr. Bush will avoid repeating past errors. When the landslide is coming you need to recruit the best candidates possible so that they can win re-election. The crop of nitwits, weirdos, and shut-ins who were carried in by the two juggernaiuts of '80 and '94 ended up having great difficulty defending their seats, even though they had initially beaten seemingly invincible incumbents. You don't look at a Chuck Schumer, a Barbara Boxer, etc., and decide to toss up a scarificial lamb because of the unique circumstances in their liberal states. National tides sweep out even such "safe" Senators. But six years from now, in an off year election after 14 years of GOP rule, it will be hard to maintain these seats if you've elected knuckleheads this time around. So go with the best you've got.

Meanwhile, the Bush campaign needs to run as if they're going to win and win big, because they're going to, and that means crafting the party, the agenda, and the Congress that you want to head into the coming years with. Losing NY is an unlikelihood but it wouldn't matter in the bigger picture. Mr. Bush will still win re-election. But getting that seat for the GOP, getting closer to a veto-proof majority, and putting a potential star in office--say Rudy Guiliani--could be huge. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 30, 2003 12:10 PM