Seems like it was only two days ago that I was wondering if Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) -- he of the crazy "Soviet constitution" talk, and officially in the race to replace the retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) -- would prove to be something of a test case for Karl Rove's new anti-crazy-talk political operation, the Conservative Victory Fund. After all, when it comes to the sort of "gaffiness" that Rove's group purports to be against, Broun is cut from much the same cloth as Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), whom the Conservative Victory Fund has held out as the prime example of who should not be running for Senate.
Of course, for this to become a test case, Broun would have to draw a more "presentable" opponent for the Conservative Victory Fund to sidle up to, in courtship. Well, as National Review's Katrina Trinko and Robert Costa report, this is where Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) comes in -- he's apparently "eyeing" a bid for Chambliss' seat, and he's very open to the sidling:
Georgia Republican Tom Price, who is flirting with a Senate bid, commended Karl Rove’s controversial Conservative Victory Project this morning at a National Review briefing.
"Republicans ought to be in the majority of the United States Senate," said Price, a prominent House conservative and vice chair of the Budget Committee. "We have lost seats that we should not have lost because of a failure of communications, a failure of message, a failure of coherence within campaigns."
At the National Review briefing, Price expressed some regret over the internecine battling but held firm, saying that the GOP must "be smarter about what we're doing in order to get quality conservative candidates out of the other end of that chute, to go toe-to-toe with Democrats who are clearly taking this country in the wrong direction."
The short version: "Hey, Conservative Victory Fund, get with me." And, in truth, Price would be precisely the sort of candidate Rove would care to have -- staunch defender of the conservative point of view on the Second Amendment, fervently pro-life, as antithetical to the interests of the LGBT community as one can get. Remember, Rove is not necessarily looking for a bunch of moderate conservatives seeking a Mitch Daniels-style "truce" on social issues, just for candidates who have the necessary poise to not put their foot in their mouths and chomp themselves knee-ward. Price, whose brief isn't full of the sort of flamboyantly base statements that Broun takes pride in, would be a good match, should he officially jump in the race. At the moment, he seems open to a little encouragement from Rove's group.
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