Shira Toeplitz at Roll Call tweets:
Dino Rossi is meeting today with @johncornyn @NRSC about a Senate bid against Sen. Patty Murray (R-Wash.)
Huh. Well there goes one explanation of Rob McKenna’s incredibly stupid political misstep.
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Please go for it, Dino. Please, oh please, oh please.
Maybe not. Maybe McKenna’s broadside was just enough to encourage convince Rossi not to try for the Governor’s seat again, so he’s looking at other available races. Besides, Rossi wasn’t the only potential Tea Bag activist which might have drained votes from McKenna in a top-two primary.
But for the life of me, I can’t see how Rossi would realistically expect to win Murray’s seat. Surely he’s not dumb enough to believe early wingnut polls at this point (they had him winning convincingly over Gregoire in both of the last elections). And quite frankly, Murray’s a better campaigner than Gregoire.
Rossi tried to win last time by turning general anti-encumbent feelings against Republicans against Gregoire (which assumes that voters are dumb enough to not know the difference between a Republican presidential incumbent and a state Democratic incumbent). That won’t work this time around. All he can do is carry the wingnut banner and hope it’s going to be good enough. It hasn’t worked against Murray in the past, I don’t see any reason why Rossi has any better chance of pulling it off than his predecessors.
“’cause you’re once, twice, three times a loser…”
But as far as the NRSC is concerned, what other sacrificial lamb could they talk into taking on Patty Murray? They expect that he can’t win, they are probably looking for someone who can raise their own money (not looking to the national committees for much monetary support), and can just keep Murray occupied enough that she can’t spend her own money and time on other Democratic candidates.
Is Dino naive and vain enough to believe them when they tell him that he’s got a great chance at beating Murray, and they are looking forward to working with him in the Senate, and they will do everything they can to make sure he’s elected???
Well, probably.
I asked this over on Publicola, but it hasn’t been answered over there:
Not that it really matters in Dino’s case … the most recent Dino ’08 PDC filing reported a grand total of $9,868.27 cash-in-hand.
Ooops, sorry, PDC doesn’t like anyone to easily display their information. The latest Rossi C4 was submitted on November 8, 2009.
Also, according to TheEye, the Congressional Quarterly‘s blog, here’s what’ll happen if Dino chooses not to
lose torun against Patty:Heh! Take that, Clint Didier!
It’s an interesting idea to send Dino out there.
Dino has lost twice to a woman who, her own people even admit, has difficulty connecting directly with the voters and is not seen as being very “warm” and “friendly”. With that history do you want to go up against the woman who is still seen as the “mom in soccer shoes”. In addition she balances that warm, friendly persona with the tenacity of a bulldog.
The NRSC has to put in a token effort, but to run on the “vote ’em all out” ticket backfires. People will poll that politicians stay too long in office and we should vote the incumbents out. When it comes time to actually vote they still send the same person back.
test2
I’m still hoping for a primary fight between the GOP Party (Dino) and GOP REAL (McKenna). The GOP el al can pay me for that one. GOP REAL sounds so locker-room sweaty.
I thought Paul Akers was going after Senator Murray’s seat. Let’s have a 3-way…Akers and Rossi can split the votes, and Murray can return to the Senate.
@10
Perhaps you live in a cave and are unfamiliar with the structure of WA’s primaries.
Murray returns to the Senate regardless.
The Goop is in total disarray in this state.
Especially now that McKenna has stepped in it.
[Deleted — Off topic]
@11
Nope, my duh. I’m not a party member so I don’t vote in them, so I tend to forget them entirely.
1. proud leftist spews:
Your wish will be granted….with a Scott Brown-style campaign.
Hearing a dozen KLOWNS bloviating in an echo chamber in no way reflects the anger Americans feel towards Obam-Mao and the Democrats massive deficit spending and Big Government.
@14
They’re not just for parties, especially now with “top-two” it is a part of the candidate selection process.
@15
You are extremely delusional. What possible evidence do you have that Murray is even vulnerable in the first place? Much less against Dino Rossi?
Remember Dino lost, twice to someone that even the most partisan Democrats admit is a very poor campaigner. She even increased her victory margin the second time around in spite of being somewhat unpopular.
Sen. Murray on the other hand is an excellent campaigner, is fairly popular, and has boatloads of cash to get her message out and respond to any nonsense Rossi might spew.
Remember the Murray campaign was able to respond to a Nethercutt attack ad with an ad of their own within hours. Not just releasing it to the media but having it up in paid slots.
re 15: You just keep losing, yet rejoin the fight with as much spunk and confidence as the Black Knight in Monty Python.
‘Fight, you cowards!!!’
Brown won because he looks good — much the way Harding won the presidency after womwn received the right to vote.
That’s not gonna happen for Dino Rossi. Now he looks like an OLD oily used car salesman.
Cynny @ 15
Are you cheering on all of your wingnut colleagues’ death threats and acts of vandalism that are happening across the nation against congressional Democrats who supported the healthcare legislation? The people doing those things are your ideological comrades. Has one goddamned GOP leader condemned what is happening? You and your ilk are morally bankrupt. You and your ilk also hate democracy.
I wonder ……….
What are the economics? Seems to me that running (and losing) may be a way of making money?
The wingnuts are going all-in based on their manic socialist-birther-tenther-9/12-Beck/Palin platform with cretins like Jim Demint & Michelle Bachman at the helm. In contrast sacrificing Rossi on the alter of failure once more seems downright sane.
Well, to paraphrase Alice Roosevelt Longworth, if you can’t make a souffle rise twice, I’m sure three times will do the trick!
Here’s the thing: Scott Brown was on his FIRST statewide run (new face), doing it during a SPECIAL election (read: more incentive for angry wingnuts than normal MA voters). Dino Rossi is on his THIRD statewide election (read: “God, THIS guy again?”), and will be doing it during a general election in a state Obama won 60-40, presumably having to hew to the teabagger line of ZOMG HEALTH CARE WORSE THAN HITLER111!!! MUST REPEAL! HULK SMASH!11!!
I’d give Reichert a marginally better chance of this working (since Sheriff Dave looks awful purty on TV), but even he’s going to be screwed by his voting record. The only guy the Rs had who had (note past tense) of winning something like this was pre-teabagging AG lawsuit Rob McKenna, but at this point, if you’re going to come out with the TeaBag Party line in this state, you’re starting 20 points down, and good luck finding the rest of those points. (The Contract
onfor America was a lot less nutty than current Teabaggers are, because the Teabaggers’ve been whipped into a frenzy… and I am sure the Democrats will be happy to remind voters of their ugliness.)Of course, Christine and the majority Dems are yet to create a fix for the Greater Republican Depression revenue crash. The budget has to be balanced, so they’re going to have to make some seriously unpopular moves. How pissed Washington voters are, and how adept Repubs are at exploiting that will come into play. Patty may be immune to all that, though. She’s pretty popular with Boeing and the military here.