The National Republican Senatorial Committee has drawn a line in the sand: Don’t work with opponents to Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., who was controversially appointed earlier this year to replace Jeff Sessions when he became attorney general.
The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm is threatening GOP consulting firms not to work against Sen. Luther Strange in the upcoming primary election.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which recruits and defends Republican candidates, could not immediately be reached for comment. Politico first reported on the NRSC’s stance.
“We have made it very clear from the beginning that Sen. Luther Strange would be treated as an incumbent,” NRSC spokeswoman Katie Martin told Politico, according to remarks posted by the Andalusia Star. “It has also been a clear policy that we will not use vendors who work against our incumbents.”
The Republican primary election for Strange is to be held on August 15, with a general election to follow in December of this year.
I can appreciate the NRSC policy of backing incumbents — after all, whoever becomes its chairman does so with the votes of Senate incumbents. So it’s only natural, even if it isn’t the best thing for the country or the GOP itself.
But Strange, as fine a senator as he may have been for the last several weeks, wasn’t chosen by Alabama’s Republican voters. Or any of its voters, for that matter. He was chosen by a governor who has since resigned in disgrace. At the time of the appointment, many viewed it as suspicious that Strange, Alabama’s Attorney General and the man investigating that governor, had been packed off to Washington by said governor while that investigation was ongoing.
Perhaps it wasn’t suspicious at all — and the fact that former Republican Gov. Robert Bentley has been forced to resign since the appointment might be evidence of that. But it seems reasonable for the NRSC to treat this as an open seat, because as far as the voters are concerned, that’s effectively what it is.
