Posted on 11/09/2010 5:50:39 AM PST by Kaslin
I’d love to see Kent “countrywide” Conrad >ahem< retire. Two down, one to go.
I think Brown will win. Look at the totals for the governor’s race last week..Add the GOP tot he indie, and it’s very close. Also, Patrick and the Dems in the state legislature will continue to run Mass into the ground, so Brown will benefit from a huge “send the bastards a message” voter turn-out..
Brilliant post..thanks..
Sadly, any of those RATs might win in a presidential year. You forgot about Meehan, Tierney and Robert Reich. And you didn’t mention Lynch or Neal, perhaps because they are (at least nominally) pro-life and would have a hard time winning the Dem nomination. But any of those Democrats have sufficiently high name ID that they will be tough to beat in a presidential-election year. Brown was able to ride a perfect storm to win by 3% in a low-turnout special election, but he will face a much tougher environment in 2012. Whoever wins the Democrat nomination will start off as the favorite.
Teabaggy??? Holy crap. I can’t imagine the ribbing she took back in college . . . .
If Allen runs, he’ll win.
After all Dick Wadhams will be off ruining someone else’s chances like he has in Colorado. His win with John Thune was a fluke (or out of his hands). Keep him out of Virginia.
There are several lining up for consideration to run. Not the least of which is Bob Marshall who almost beat Jim Gilmore in the primary in 2008 (and would have had a better chance against Mark Warner).
Webb is toast. The only question remaining is whether or not he’ll run again.
Can we at least kick him anyway?
I did forget about Tierney, a definite B-lister, and Meehan, who’s been out of politics, but I suppose he could come back in. Robert Reich is at UC-Berkeley. Not that he ever crossed my mind anyway. Wierd thing: I see Reich is from the same home town as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton: Scranton, PA.
Hillary claims to be from Scranton? I know that as a child she would summer somewhere in Pennsylvania (that required her family to drive through NY to get there, or at least so she claimed when she ran for the Senate from NY), but she’s from suburban Chicago, not Anthracite Country, PA.
As for Reich, he ran in the Massachusetts gubernatorial primary in 2002 (finishing second to Shannon O’Brien), and I could see him returning to MA to run for the Senate. Not that MA Dems don’t have dozens of other potential candidates far more prominent than Brown was just one year ago . . . .
Your enormous, obscene, defeatist error is in the thought that the way to win swing voters is to run candidates who offer little alternative to the Democrats who run the state, control the patronage, and have the familiarity and misplaced trust of the voters.
“Senator X is a worthless fool who’s been driving the nation to ruin, and if you vote for me, instead, I promise you more of the same ruinous policies.”
The truth is that the very term “moderate” is a nonsensical fiction. What does it mean? There are never any votes for “Yea,” “Nay,” or “Sorta.” A moderate, therefore, is simply someone who will switch his votes based on some unknown standard, which is what? Caving to media pressure? Influence peddling? Is such a person attractive?
There are voters out there whose issues do not neatly line up with partisan affiliations; there are also others who are easily scared off the “extremist label.” In the latter case, nominating moderates only allows the media and the political left to character to characterize other Republicans as extremist, further damaging the Republican name.
The former case is a little more tricky: it is true that cobbling majorities in less Republican states means assembling collections of issues which may not neatly align with the Republican party. However, “moderates” almost to a one, always seem to adopt the same set of issues: social radicalism with claims of fiscal conservatism. These are NOT the issue sets which most often represent populism. Rather, an unprincipled economic “conservative” usually is willing to permit socialism, so long as he can first shake down the proper donors, or create abominations like the CDO, responsible for the destruction of the U.S. economy. And the social radicalism is just to ingratiate oneself with the media, which never outlasts the primary contest.
Your strategy spells nothing other than the complete destruction of the conservative movement.
btt
Let’s get ready for a running start in 2014.
Boy, I hope you are right - seems to me from the lastest elections in VA, the writing’s on the wall.
Who is Dick Wadhams? Have never heard of him. I wasn’t impressed with the Repub state chairperson, (some female who’s name I forget but is on Fox every now and then) especially after the Allen debacle - then he turned around and hired her, I believe. Sheesh!
Wadhams is a campaign consultant. Largely credited with John Thune’s win in SD. Allen’s team brought him in with an eye on the White House (mistakes one and two). He’s one of the principle ones who gave Allen bad advice during that whole debacle. He’s since returned home to Colorado to muck things up there.
Corin - thank you for this info. It pays to know who is “behind the curtain’ in these campaigns - I have worked for a few myself - and keep score on them. Nothing cracks me up more than seeing Bob Schrum and Mark Miller? (McCain-ite) opine when they are nothing but proven failures in politics...incredible!
Oh, and add the loud mouth woman who ran Dukaka’s campaign - oh, Susan Estrich....she’s a pip and has FAILURE stamped on her forehead!
Oh, and check out a news item on AOL just posted...Webb is thinking of going Repubby!!!!!!
Yes, he must just LOVE being a senator, enough to hope the Pubs don’t mind that he voted for Obummer care...
(He did, didn’t he?)
I don’t know that Webb has publicly stated that he’d consider switching to being a Republican. It wouldn’t be his first party switch.
What I do know is that the Virginia GOP wouldn’t give him the nomination.
Is Virginia going to nominate by primary or convention in 2012?
BTW, I Googled it, and Capuano’s wife’s maiden name is spelled “Teebagy.” Close enough, I’d say.
GOP hasn't decided yet. Their annual advance is next weekend. I'm not sure though, if that's when they'll make their decision. There are factors lobbying for both options.
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