I’ve mentioned before that I’m in a mailgroup (in which I lurk only), the subject of which is the Dodd re-election campaign. Lately there’s been a bit of debate about whether it was wise for the Connecticut Democrats to go after Linda McMahon for her rank hypocrisy (hey, she’s a new Republican and she’s trying to fit in) or keep all guns aimed at the alleged front runner, Rob Simmons.
There are reasonable arguments on both sides, but it seems to me that it makes good sense to try to stir up some fratricidal warfare over on the other side. It’s bound to happen sooner or later, given the rather large egos of the players involved, so it might as well happen sooner.
There’s another reason. Simmons may be the darling of the Republican establishment, but that may not get him much mileage, particularly given the huge amount of money that his opponents will be throwing at him. He may, in fact, be as inevitable as Hillary Clinton.
Now, to you or me, it may not appear that there is a Barack Obama in the pack that can take him down, but we don’t think like Republicans, particularly like the extreme Republicans that populate the tea party fringe, which is a significant force in what has become a rump party. Those folks are pretty stupid, but probably not stupid enough to be satisfied with a “moderate” Republican just because he wraps his pocket constitution in a teabag. There’s no saying who can win a five or four way primary in which the winner may get no more than 35% of the vote.
I don’t care what the polls say. Except for Caluguri, they each have a shot. It’s not at all clear, too, that McMahon would be preferable to Simmons as Dodd’s opponent. The country is filled with involuntarily retired politicians who got to run against their preferred opponent.
Yes, Simmons is a dirty campaigner, but aren’t they all? Yes, he has a moderate image, but McMahon, at least, can out moderate him any day of the week. I don’t know much about her, but she can’t possibly be as personally unappealing as he is, or come across as more insincere. I remain convinced that he won in 2000 because he was not Sam Gejdenson, who unfairly or not was perceived as having completely lost touch with the district. His ability to raise money is limited. Moreover, he has a record that can be exploited when the time comes. She is tabula rasa, except for her business “achievements”, in which, by the way, she has demonstrated a remarkable ability to appeal to the very lowest in our society, precisely the people she needs to reach to win the Republican nomination.
So it seems wise at this point to go after all of these folks when opportunities arise. Now is the time to challenge her on her “PG entertainment” claims; a year from now might be too late to start. We can only hope that the Connecticut Democrats will take aim at Schiff as well. He’s the guy who will appeal to the tea party idiots. It shouldn’t be hard to come up with an approach that would turn the average voter against him, while solidifying his support among the tin hats. Now he’s an opponent we would really like to have. Who was the last person to get elected while advocating the abolition of Social Security? That’s not an issue to bring up right now, but there’s plenty to chose from that would undermine his standing with the rational, while leaving the crazies unfazed. Who knows, in a four way primary with three relatively mainstream types, he just might be able to pull in enough votes to win.
Sidenote: Oliver Willis, who can sometimes be obtuse, missed the boat completely on this one. The Democrats aren’t attacking McMahon for the content of her “entertainment”; they are attacking her for lying about it. She chose to take the issue on preemptively by labeling her product “PG” and “family entertainment”. No doubt she figured that if she repeated that claim often enough the characterization would stick. It’s the hypocrisy, Oliver.
Post a Comment