For Young Republicans, Coats a Tough Sell
The words below are cross-posted from The Capitol Wacthblog and written by my colleague, Republican Mike O’Brien. I think it illustrates a bog hurdle the Dan Coats campaign is going to have to overcome.
Everything I know about Dan Coats, I’ve learned in the past ten days. When Coats was first elected to Congress I was two years old. When he retired from the U.S. Senate I was a senior in high school. By the time I was in college and focused on politics as a career, he was in Germany. I am in the odd position of being a Republican Party insider who has no connection to or memory of the Republican field’s uber-insider and presumed front-runner. I’m not alone.
For the 40 and under crowd, the name Dan Coats carries with it little more than inherited admiration borrowed from those who recall his nearly two decades of public service. I respect Dan Coats because people who I respect, respect him. But at a time when the Republican Party is reinventing itself and ushering in fresh candidates who bring new energy and ideas, the hopes for a successful Coats campaign rest with a generation of voters on Medicare. That’s not exactly the post-Bayh future I was hoping for and it’s hard to see how Coats can effectively attract broad support and turn it into electoral success.
However unfair attacks on Coats may be, Republicans who need to make the case for principled, conservative leadership in Washington will instead be forced to spend the next nine months explaining away lobbying contracts while making the case that Coats is an Indiana resident. Those issues, though generally unhelpful, were a wash in a campaign against Evan Bayh. They are now a crippling liability against any one of the potential Democratic Party candidates.
Republicans needed Coats to raise the profile of this race and put it in the national spotlight against a political giant. Now an open seat, it is among Republican’s top targets. Coats had his time, and I’m told he served his state well. Let’s thank him for his service and move on.
