Unintended Consequences, All Around

Remember when the chances of Mike Castle mounting a write-in campaign for the U.S. Senate seat Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party Express nad-crunched him out of were "under five percent"?  Would you say that perhaps those chances were maybe a leeeeetle bit undersold?:

Representative Mike Castle is planning on polling a potential three-way Senate race to test his chances as a write-in candidate, a Delaware Republican tells POLITICO…

The GOP source did not have specifics on when Castle’s team would conduct the poll, but viewed it as a practical step even if the nine-term congressman was unlikely to re-enter the race…

Delaware GOP National Committeewoman Priscilla Rakestraw said she has fielded dozens of calls over the last forty-eight hours, mostly from Democrats, about a potential Castle write-in campaign.

“They want to organize a write-in campaign. I’m stunned. Obviously, they don’t like their option of voting for Chris Coons. I pass them along to Mike Castle’s organization. I think they are waiting for a nod from Castle,” Rakestraw said.

Well, golly gee whiz, that's a WONDERFUL way for an ostensible "Republican" to put over the notion of "not quitting on Delaware," isn't it?  You might even call it "storming the castle," except that it'd be way too pugnacious and aggressive for such a peaceful, gentle, good-natured soul as Congressman Castle.  Whose, you know, nads are still flattened and throbbing in agony.

Which is why absolutely he'll run a write-in effort - but only if he can win it.  I think we can safely assume that there's zero chance of running enough interference against Chris Coons that CO'D manages to slither past them both.  She's sixteen points down to Coons as it is, and the foul way she ran her insurgent primary campaign so short-sheeted her core support in that heavily "blue" state that she's lost whatever RINO votes she could have had to Coons already.  So Castle jumping (back) in would only kneecap the "bearded Marxist," without opening any accessible doors for her.  Which, of course, is the same conclusion Castle must be drawing, which is why he's exploring the possibility.

Of course, that's not how tighty-righties will see it.  But then they still think O'Donnell can beat Coons straight-up, so their campaign analyses aren't terribly useful.

Now if they WERE thinking rationally, well, they wouldn't have gotten in Castle's way in the first place.  Let's rephrase that to read, "Now if they were BELATEDLY thinking rationally," O'Donnelloids would WELCOME a Castle write-in effort precisely because it would suck votes almost entirely away from Chris Coons and give her a much better shot - still not much of one, but much better - at pulling off the upset.  As it is, the only use to which they'll put a Castle "insurgency" is to scapegoat him if Coons wins anyway ("Christine would have WON if not for that old queer!").  And if Castle were to score the Liebermanesque comeback?  RINOgeddon, my friends.  Which is why I would consider a Castle party-switch a distinct possibility in that scenario.

The write-in is a go, ladies and gentlemen.  Bank on it.

Meanwhile, in the OTHER write-in campaign, in which, to briefly review, the RINO has functionally zero chance of winning OR spoiling the "true conservative"'s path to victory because that state is as "red" as Delaware is "blue," that little "optics" problem I discussed the other day arising from Senate Republicans' flip-flop on stripping Lulu McAdoo is having the easily foreeable PR consequences to which their bet-hedging blinded them:

Murkowski, a GOP senator from Alaska who decided to pursue an independent write-in bid for reelection after losing her Republican Senate primary, said that her colleagues' decision to allow her to keep her position as ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was an "affirmation."

Murkowski said Republican senators "recognize, 'You know what? Lisa might be a risk-taker, but she's got a real shot at coming back here, and it only makes good sense that we would not want to be so punitive that she would be discouraged by the actions of her colleagues,' " she said in a Q-and-A with Time magazine published Friday.

.."This was an affirmation of the relationship that I've built over the past eight years with the people that I work with," she said. "As difficult as the politics are, as awkward as the situation is, I had really believed that my friends would recognize that what I'm doing is for my state."

You know that old Muppets joke that goes, "What do you have when you hold two tiny green spheres in your hand?  Kermit's undivided attention"?  That's the spin the Murk is trying to put on her colleagues' el foldo.  And who can blame her?  As bleak as her chances are of pulling off this perfidious, quixotic stunt, she needs to manufacture as many advantages as she can, and painting her Senate caucus-mates as colluders in an "inevitability" gambit doesn't hurt her at all.

That it's unmitigated BS isn't going to stand in her way; she's already crossed that Rubicon, to where if she did manage to somehow also pull a Lieberman, she'd probably be even more likely to caucus with the Dems than Mike Castle would.

Which simply underscores the stupidity of this latest GOP timidity gambit in the optics it creates, because amongst that Senate Republican caucus is one Jim DeMint, who had already started losing his marbles after the Delaware primary debacle, and now is running around shrieking conspiracy paranoia (I know, because I'm on his Senate Conservatives Fund email list) that his colleagues are "helping" Lymentia Middlestyx.

Which is nonsense.  They're not "helping" her.  They were just hedging their bets, and stupidly missing the point that that would make them LOOK like they were "helping" her.

Exit question: What are the odds that after this election Jim DeMint goes "independent" and tries to take the "true conservative" freshmen that get elected in November with him?  And could we not then say that he was in cahoots with the Democrats for helping Harry Reid or Chucky Schumer remain Majority Leader?