47 percent tape? Mid-September. Mourdock meltdown? Late-October.
AP's Thomas Beaumont
declares the Democratic Party to be distraught over a lack of Akinesque or Mourdockesque meltdowns thus far in 2014...
But with less than four months until the 2014 election, Democrats are still waiting for new bombshells and growing more anxious about the lack of incendiary material as they try to hold enough Senate seats to keep control of the chamber. Party researchers are diligently scrubbing every transcript and public comment for a hint of fringe language that might spook moderate or independent voters.
...and says the GOP is exultant that it hasn't yet imploded:
The more cautious rhetoric in 2014 has come as a relief to national GOP leaders who want to close the Democrats' edge with women, younger and minority voters. Last year, the party had a series of candidate training sessions on speaking carefully.
Well, I hate to be a party pooper, but last I checked, it was still July. And in 2012, Todd Akin's comments came in the latter half of August. Richard Mourdock's came in late October. Heck, even Mitt Romney's 47 percent remarks didn't become public until September.
None of that is a guarantee that 2014 will play out the same way as 2010 and 2012. Probably things will be different, in fact. But to say in July that Democrats are in disarray because a GOP senate candidate has yet to tarnish his or her entire party seems premature, to put it mildly. There's plenty of time for the GOP to go berserk: Just ask Mike Castle. He lost his primary to Christine O'Donnell in mid-September of 2010.
Plus, don't you think the GOP should be held to a higher standard than declaring victory because with four months to go they have yet to have a candidate utterly humiliate their entire party?