the only thing i'm really concerned about is what i call "the toomey effect", or what josh marshall noted last october during the mid-term election campaign:
The best thing ever to happen to Pat Toomey and Marco Rubio (especially Toomey) is the crop of completely whacky Tea Party nominees in maybe a half dozen Senate races across the country. Back under the old normal, Pat Toomey was a pretty out there guy. Club for Growth politics, a staunch advocate of phasing out Social Security. He seemed close to unelectable in Pennsylvania. But up against Angle, Miller, O'Donnell, he's like Bob Dole.similarly, if the GOP floats a bunch of nutballs in its presidential primary, the nutball bar will rise and suddenly people who would otherwise be written off as total lunatics will be treated like certified sane people, just by virtue of the contrast.
