Campaign for Primary Accountability invades Alabama

As a sideshow to today's voting in Alabama, where Newt Gingrich battles for his political survival in the presidential primary, the Campaign for Primary Accountability takes the field in search of two more incumbent scalps. After sharing credit for toppling Rep. Schmidt of Ohio, where redistricting made all incumbents more vulnerable than normal, the purportedly non-partisan CPA is going after two Alabama Republicans. Spencer Bachus is a ten-term incumbent who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. Jo Bonner is a five-term incumbent who chairs the House Ethics Committee. Both men decry the CPA as outside interlopers, with Bachus accusing the group of an alliance with President Obama, despite the fact that CPA is attacking from Bachus's right. The CPA claims no ideological agenda, but that's disingenuous given the group's suspicion of incumbency. Their ideology may be nothing more complicated than "power corrupts," but it remains a selective interpretation of reality. As this site shows, CPA has targeted six Democrats and eight Republicans this season. They failed in their first attempt against a Democrat in Ohio last week but more tests are coming. The main point today is that last week they rushed in to take credit when one incumbent lost. Now we know they're in play, and while we have no business rooting for or against incumbent Republicans in their primaries, we are interested in seeing how an avowedly anti-incumbent SuperPAC fares. Stay tuned.