Help me think out loud for a moment. Ernie got me thinking.
If you’re Tim Cahill, would you run as an independent? Charlie Baker jumped in, and he is the all-but-certain GOP nominee. So you have no chance of getting Republican votes.
In theory, independents are “the majority party,” so in theory an independent can win. But the problem, for Cahill, is the Democratic Party, which will muster everything it has to defeat a strong Republican challenger.
There will be no ideological space for Cahill to occupy, and no party structure for him to use.
His only hope is to remain a Democrat and hope he can scare enough people away from Deval.
It would be an ugly, brutal campaign, and there’s no real rationale for abandoning Deval in favor of Cahill right now.
I don’t want to see this happen, but again, I’m just thinking out loud. Cahill can beat Baker in a general election, but he has no chance in a field with Deval. He has to take on Deval directly in the Democratic Primary.
He might look erratic if he changes his mind, and he might unite the party behind Deval and doom himself to pitiful primary numbers.
But I think it’s his only chance.
Or he could sit this one out altogether.
I thought Cahill had a better shot as a Democrat running against Deval. But he’s cast his die, and if he tries to get back into the Party now, he’s just a Bay State Ross Perot.
“all but certain”
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p>As Republicans keep telling me on thread after thread, Christy Mihos is running and has plenty of support. In politics, it’s very different to work behind the scenes, as Charlie Baker has done, than it is to have your name on the ballot. We don’t know what Charlie Baker the candidate will be like. Without said knowledge, it’s rather presumptuous to assume he’ll flatten Christy Mihos, who at least has some experience at running for statewide office and will likely have a war chest to match Charlie Baker’s.
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p>As for Tim Cahill, these are things he should have considered before he abandoned the party. Whereas he would have probably made it through the convention if he didn’t pull any of this crap beforehand, now he’s all but certain to not pass the 15% threshold to get your name on the Democratic Primary Ballot. He probably left in the first place thinking it would have been hard, now it’s impossible. As the saying goes, you make your bed, you lie in it.
as staffers on Christy’s campaign. Nothing so far from the Baker camp. The Ogonowski campaign proved that anointment means jack if you can’t get the basic campaign organization down pat.
Philosophically, I agree with you, anointment means jack. But in the GOP, it has worked pretty well in general, no?
He’s just committed political suicide, only we haven’t seen the coroner’s report yet. Won’t matter how he runs.
I think the smart aspect of his party switch was that it made him someone to watch. Can he capitalize on that? I wouldn’t bet on it, but it’s not impossible.
maybe in an elephant-in-the-room sort of way.
Though maybe we should say donkey in the room.
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p>Is it possible that Cahill never really was a Democrat? If so, he should say that. Well, maybe he shouldn’t.
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The Democratic Party never really agreed. The machine (are we supposed to hate the machine? I can’t keep track) fought him to the death when he ran for Treasurer. So there’s no love lost there. When he played by the rules, Tim was shafted by the Party…small wonder he doesn’t want to play by the Party’s rules any more.
Our newest US senator, Al Franken, literally owes nothing to the Democratic Party, but he’s got a sunnier attitude about it.
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p>In other words, did Tim really get treated any worse than any other unknown? Do you have specific examples?
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p>If I enter a room where I feel comfortable, and someone doesn’t like my shirt, that’s one thing. It’s another thing if I’m already uncomfortable when I enter.
Did the DFL in Minnesota throw every dirty book against him in a primary because they favored somebody from the inside?
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p>The sanitized version of the story is reprinted in the Phoenix:
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I’m tempted to say that’s still not worse than what other non-anointed candidates face, and that he should have rolled with the changed situation once he was treasurer, but I’m not him and I don’t know.
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p>I mean, even Ted Kennedy had opponents early on. “If his name were Edward Moore … ” (I know, he was anointed, bad analogy.) But it aint beanbag is what I’m saying.
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It’s this kind of meddling in primaries that puts hard-working Democrats in “ef” the party mode. In my Senate district, I watched the Chair and party officials, who couldn’t find my city without a GPS and knew nothing about the needs and issues of the community, give money, show up at fundraisers, and provide all kinds of connections and support for a particular senate candidate, whom most of us (long time workers in the trenches) thought would only use the seat for a stepping stone. And he won…and did just that. He got bored, attempted to run for another seat, changed his mind and then left the Senate all together. With their annointing and support, they tilted the playing field, and while no one ever said politics is beanbag, the insider game leaves a very bad taste in the mouths of Dems who’ve been very faithful and very supportive.
I get frustrated with that too.
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p>But I was talking about the specific case of Cahill. He won, so immediately he should have been able to build his own strength within the party.
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p>Let’s assume for the moment that he is a moderate-conservative Dem. Well, there are always large numbers of moderate-conservative Dems, he could have become their champion. Why didn’t he do that?
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p>Sure, he had the problem of the Patrick phenomenon, but that was four years after he won — plenty of time for him to build the proverbial bridges and mend fences (or, if need be, take some fences down).
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p>I didn’t mean to imply, above, that the inner game is A-OK. But Cahill was better positioned than most of us to change that game.
like Sarah Palin’s resignation from her governorship.
“Just spell my name right.”