Meanwhile, on dailyKos, Kos writes, “While we obsessed over the cloture vote, that was not news to the rest of the country …. What was? Bob Woodruff almost getting killed and Jill Carroll pleading for her life …. This isn’t meant to minimize the importance of the Alito vote, but to note that this has not been a glorious day for Dear Leader. In fact, it’s one of those days that may very well have turned the public against his presidency once and for all.”
Please. This kind of pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking — Filibuster Alito from Davos! The public is about turn on Bush because of hostages in Iraq! — shows how extremist and out of touch some members of our community, perhaps in desperation, have become.
The way to win is to concentrate on specific, realistic, attainable solutions to existing problems; build a coalition with conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans; and make sure effective candidates get the money and attention they need to succeed.
I invite you to reach out to good candidates you know who are running for office, or thinking of running for office. Ask them to write a post introducing themselves. I’ll promote any candidate for public office in Massachusetts to the front page immediately (David and Charlie probably will too). Thousands of people will be more familiar with them than they were at the start of the day. We’ll also be happy to interview them and post the results. Hard work and practical politics. That is how to win.
Bob, therefore it makes perfect sense to support Reilly, who is the conservative democrat you need to get things done. He is also quietly wooing a number of Republican’s.
Reilly’s campaign doesn’t inspire much confidence that he can beat either Deval Patrick or Kerry Healey these days. When Brian McGrory – who is the closest thing to an old-school, non-flaming-liberal Democrat that the major papers offer us – entitles his column on Reilly “Unsteady is unready,” and opens it by saying “If this is what a Tom Reilly governorship is going to look like, then maybe it’s time to look at Plan B,” you know you’ve got trouble.
I agree with McGrory about 50% of the time but on that article I think he hit a home run! Patrick needs to start getting very public right now to take advantage of Reilly’s bumps. Patrick needs to start looking like he is a leader making well thoughtout decisions.
As much as Reilly looks shaky coming off this announcement (and he does), Patrick still is an outsider candidate who has been frontpaged by the Globe as having difficulty with what should be his natural constituency. Meanwhile, Kerry Healey is, well, Kerry Healey. I would bet that Reilly weathers this little storm at a time when most people really aren’t paying too much attention and the other candidates aren’t outshining him. If Patrick kicks it into high gear somehow over the next month, then it’s a different story of course.