Rendell to GOP: ‘Careful what you wish for’

A former Democratic governor said Sunday that Republicans should “be careful what you wish for” when it came to capturing the Senate.

“If they get the Senate, they better do something. They better send the president responsible pieces of legislation or they’ll get crushed in 2016,” former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Rendell also suggested that President Obama should be more interested in finding areas of agreement with a Republican-controlled Congress – perhaps pairing alternative energy incentives with approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, or finding an infrastructure deal.

Still, neither Rendell nor Mo Elleithee, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, were ready to concede that the Senate was lost.

“I think there’s a huge problem with the GOP brand,” Rendell said, riffing on Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) comments that the brand “sucks.”

“They should be stampeding this election,” Rendell added. “This election isn’t over by any means.”

Elleithee pointed out that Democrats were still competitive in generally red states like Kansas and Georgia, and predicted that more GOP governors would lose on Tuesday than Democratic senators.

But Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, and former Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) pushed back on the idea that there was an issue with the GOP brand.

“It’s never an easy thing to beat an incumbent,” Spicer said, also predicting that the GOP would do well in gubernatorial races in generally blue New England.

“That’s just the reality of being a United States senator,” Spicer said.

Barbour noted that the GOP currently has a strong majority of governors and state legislatures, and its largest House majority in six decades.

“It’s not the brand,” he said.