Because MA Democratic party spokesmen are starting to talk about how they’re not even talking about replacing Ms. Warren somehow. For those unfamiliar with the rough-and-tumble of political campaigns – which is to say, people like Elizabeth Warren – this is the first warning sign that the leadership of a political party is quietly talking about replacing a substandard candidate somehow. So… maybe it’s time to let things simmer, as it were.
Yes, I am fully cognizant of the counter-argument that you don’t want to let up on a wounded opposing candidate, but there is the niggling detail that Elizabeth Warren is not yet officially the candidate. The Democrats could conceivably still blitz an alternative that can gather the signatures for the June 5th deadline and get the 15% of delegates necessary at the June 2nd convention to get on the September primary ballot*; and if there’s too much panic, they probably will. The only reason that they haven’t, yet, is because Warren has a lot of money and her major primary opponent wants to use the MA-SEN race to argue about how we need single-payer health care; given that Scott Brown won successfully on being the sixtieth vote against Obamacare, you can imagine just how well that particular policy position sits with the MA Democratic brass. But the Democrats can still decide that they might as well take a chance, so hey: let’s be careful out there.
On the bright side, we still have time to calibrate our erosion of Elizabeth Warren: nobody from the MA Democratic party is talking about how they have every confidence in her. That is actually a code phrase for “ATTENTION ALL OPERATIVES: you have been compromised. I repeat, you have been compromised. Shred the books, trash the hard drive, and sanitize the area before you fall back to the safe house for later extraction.”
Via The Campaign Spot.
Moe Lane
*The system is very well-designed, is it not? …For a given value of ‘well-designed.’
If, by “well designed”, you mean “designed to give the power brokers as much time as possible to correct for errors”, then yes. It’s very well designed.
If, by “well designed”, you mean “designed to best reflect the votes of We The People”, then .. not so much.
Mew
But why does Rasmussen still show MA a dead-heat between Evil Lizzie and Scott Brown? Shouldn’t Brown be blowing her out of the H2O by now?
OU812: Annnnnnd right on schedule.
Well, they always have the Torricelli option. Total control of the MA legislature, Governor’s mansion, and a fully stacked judiciary mean that the election laws in MA mean exactly what the Dems need them to mean. If they need a new candidate, they will get one.
Well, it IS Massachusetts – they amended election law to take the Senate appointment authority away from a Republican Governor (Romney in case Kerry won in 2004), and then amended it again to give it back to a Democrat Governor (deathbed wish by Teddy Kennedy). So, anything goes.
I’m of the opinion that you keep hitting your target until it stops moving. Elizabeth Warren hasn’t techinally stopped moving yet. If and when she’s defeated in th primary, we move onto the other substandard candidate.
BG5: I think that it’s complicated by the fact that whaling on Warren is itself a meritorious act; destroying her political career is arguably a positive action wrt protecting the Republic. But I am starting to worry that destroying her too soon will allow somebody better-suited to win MA might take her place.
LOL – Moe, you know me way too well. And my pessimism, err…cautious realism, too well. 🙂
I guess only thing left for me to say is to ask you to play another Van Halen song. LOL!!!!
Have a great day!
Moe: I completely disagree. I think it will be much easier to keep the seat if Elizabeth Warren loses the primary election. I’m fully aware that Scott Brown is a moderate and I’ve become a die-hard conservative, but I rather have Brown than Warren any day of the week. If we take the Senate, then Brown would have few opportunities (if any) to cross the aisle.
BG5: it’s complicated. If Warren and DeFranco end up being the only two options on the September primary ballot, then DeFranco is the better choice from our point of view: she’s hard Left, has had no traction, is snarly towards the state party, and has damn-all in the way of money. But if the Democrats can get somebody else on the primary ballot, then Warren becomes our best option for the primary, because while she sucks as a candidate she has enough money to at least win that. I can’t see DeFranco turning into a money pit for the general, but I can see Warren becoming one.
Moe Lane
PS: My parents are from Boston, not me personally. But I’ve been up there a lot in my life, obviously.
Or I could be very wrong. You live up that way, no?