Six is the number Republicans need to take over the Senate, and any six of a number would be able do it, but campaigns and candidates are not equal in value, and it matters which six these will be.
One hopes all will win (and will oust Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., which is very important), but there are always some who are rather more equal than others and have tangible assets that others do not. Such assets include the potential to project strength and purpose, to win independents and centermost parts of the opposite party, to expand the party’s appeal to key demographics, to win in states that don’t always vote for their party, and then hold their own on a national ticket.
The House is important because of its votes, but it is also the gateway to the Senate and statehouses, which are gateways in turn to the national tickets, and many who stay in the House and the Senate play oversize roles in the making of policy and in shaping the national brand. Parties that don’t recruit strong personalities with interesting minds develop anemia, and it’s not hard to see who they are.
In his book Our Country, Michael Barone wrote that the Democrats in 1960 had “a dazzling set of national candidates,” and John Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, reaching the House fresh from the Navy, were seen by their peers from the start as possible presidents. In judging the success of these midterm elections, we should not look for wins alone, but for candidate quality, star power, and the power to do what the party needs done.
Thus, if the GOP has to lose some close races, it’s better to lose them in Kansas or Georgia, as Pat Roberts and David Perdue will never be president (and they come from red states which could flip back in subsequent cycles), while Rep. Cory Gardner, in Colorado, and Rep. Tom Cotton, in Arkansas, just might. Joni Ernst in Iowa could also go anywhere, and there are four women running for seats in the House who could have a national impact exceeding the gain of one seat: Barbara Comstock in Northern Virginia, who may in time run for the Statehouse or Senate; Mia Love, the gorgeous black Mormon from Utah; Martha McSally, the pilot and veteran running for Gabby Giffords’ old seat in Arizona; and Elise Stefanik from New York of all places — young, cute, and bouncy, and a real-life cultural counter to the dense Lena Dunham of “Girls.”
It would be fun to see them mixing it up with all the pro-abortion members of Congress, and a strong, diverse female bench to join Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., on the hustings will be a necessity in an election cycle driven by Hillary Clinton (and the populist from Massachusetts). They will remind people that there are different and better models for women, and that the first female president need not be a Democrat and should be a fresher face from a new generation, unburdened by scandal and scandalous husbands, who rose by her talents alone.
It would be nice to see Perdue pull it out (and nicer to see Scott Brown win in New Hampshire), but if the GOP can pull in the girls, along with Gardner, Cotton, and Benjamin Sasse (the Rhodes scholar from Nebraska whose race is so won that it gets no attention), it will have gone a long way toward fixing some long-standing problems and can call 2014 a pretty good year.
Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.
