My Left Nutmeg reports that Merrick Alpert is making the rounds of the right wing media outlets, promising to run a campaign built around trash talking Dodd.
I’m going to assume that Merrick is not completely crazy, so there must be some method to this particular type of madness. Here’s my take, for what it’s worth.
If he runs as a Democrat, particularly a Democrat to Dodd’s left, he gets no traction and no money. But if he runs as a Republican stalking horse, he gets plenty of free publicity via Fox and Friends, and possibly some money from right wingers looking to damage Dodd. So, in the short run, this gives him some visibility and maybe some money for a campaign that would otherwise get neither.
But publicity and money are usually only means to an end. Here’s where the questions begin anew. Precisely what is Alpert trying to accomplish? If he’s trying to actually win the nomination, he has already reduced his chances to zero.
In the end Dodd will have more money, and the attacks will only cause Democrats, especially activist Democrats, to circle the wagons around Dodd. After all, even those of us who would prefer to see Dodd retire gracefully feel that way more out of sorrow than anger. We like him, even if we are worried about his re-election chances. No challenger could make serious headway with Democrats with a slash and burn anti-Dodd campaign. In short, this strategy, whatever its short term benefits, guarantees that the Democratic candidate for the US Senate will not be Merrick Alpert. (Unfortunately, it also increases the chances that we will have two Republican Senators in 2011) It also guarantees that Alpert will have no future in the Democratic party. I think it’s safe to say that Alpert can even forget about that town council nomination we were trying to give him.
This is not 2006, Dodd is not Joe Lieberman, and Merrick Alpert is not Ned Lamont.
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