"DeepThinker" asks:
Will Scott Brown hold onto his base? Can the Dems win without appealing to Scott Brown's base of guys who like guys who drive pick-up trucks? Is Bob Massie too intellectual to gain broad appeal? Is Setti Warren jumping in too soon? Can Mike Capuano recover from the stigma of having lost to Coakley? Is this too many questions?
There is no such thing as too many questions; only too-stupid questions.
Yours are not stupid, however. Let's see... Yes, Scott Brown will hold onto his base. They'll have no place else to go, and no he is not going to have a serious primary challenge from the right. (Although I think it would help him in the general, by showing that he's not on the fringe right.)
Dems can win by bringing regular Democratic voters back home -- particularly Democratic-leaning unenrolled and moderate/conservative Democrat voters. They'll get some of that by virtue of it being a Presidential election year, when lots and lots of voters will come pouring out to vote for Obama (including a lot of urban Democrats who stayed home or crossed party lines in the Brown/Coakley debacle). They'll need to get more by attacking Brown on specific votes, and he's not going to make that easy.
However, your question about "guys who like guys who drive pickup trucks" gives me an idea that I'll pass along free of charge to the MassDems: circulate an academic research paper claiming that men who voted for Scott Brown did so because of their latent homosexual attraction to him. And that men who vote for him twice are definitely queer.
So, where was I? Massie may or may not be too intellectual to get elected (I'm planning to sit down with him soon, so I'll report back), but I'm skeptical that voters will ever learn enough about him to reject him for that reason.
Too early for Setti Warren? I think not (although I was surprised that Deval Patrick outed him the way he did). For a candidate like that, you gotta start building it up early. And speaking of early, have I mentioned recently that I was the first to publicly float Warren for this race -- in response to an Ask Me Anything Day question? Six months ago I wrote:
But here's my early prediction: the 2012 Democratic nominee for US Senator from Massachusetts will be someone currently in elected office, but at a lower level than the state-wide or congressional incumbents. Someone in the mold of, say, a certain mayor of Newton for example. Someone like that. So keep your eyes peeled.
Man do I look smart when I reprint the things I get right.
Oh, and Capuano can get over losing to Coakley -- especially in a primary, where an awful lot of Democrats think he would have beaten Scotto. (I'm not so sure.) I'm not sure that Cap can get over being a consummate Washington back-room insider, though -- which is not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes, but also not necessarily to win a statewide election.
Latest Slideshows
