I understand what the Roy Blunt campaign is doing here, and they’re not wrong to bring it up. But it’s not the whole story.
The problem here is not that Robin Carnahan called Missouri a ‘mecca of progressivism.’ It’s not, and she didn’t mean it in that way anyway: her sarcasm and disdain for the people of Missouri who don’t think like her comes across, loud and clear. But even that’s not the problem here. In fact, the problem here is her palpable contempt for not only Missourians (you get the feeling that one of the perks of a Senate seat for Robin Carnahan would be her getting away and staying away from flyover country for months at a time), but also the very progressives that she’s trying to woo.
It’s pretty low to pander to prejudices, particularly when it’s not really justified. The DSCC fell down on the job horribly when it came to recruiting viable female Democratic challengers or replacements this cycle; Missouri and North Carolina come closest to competitive, and at this stage of the game I don’t quite see either Carnahan or Elaine Marshall pulling it off. They certainly don’t have as good a chance as either Carly Fiorina in California or Sharron Angle in Nevada: and next month we could be very well saying the same thing about Linda McMahon in Connecticut. We’ll know after the primaries whether Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and/or Christine O’Donnell of Delaware are going to be the candidates, but at least one of them is favored to win in this atmosphere.
And Robin Carnahan is not Russ Carnahan; she can function in outside society without a keeper. So she must be aware of this. And yet, she assures progressive women that the party that has been notably lacking in recruiting progressive women for Senator seats this cycle has the best interests of progressive women at heart.
Astounding.
Moe Lane