It’s official. President Obama has formally nominated Senator John Kerry to be Secretary of State. Will Elizabeth Warren have the shortest tenure as Junior Senator in the history of the Commonwealth? One of the BMG readership will know.
As for the senate race… Who’s in? Who’s out?
How do you choose who you will support?
Do you support the person whose views are closest to yours? Do you support the person who you think has the judgment, courage, knowledge, compassion and intellect to make the the best legislative decisions? Do you look at someone with similar priorities to yours?
Do you look at who has the best chance of getting elected? Do you look at fundraising? Public speaking? Stamina? Do you look at the campaign itself? Do you look for charisma and likability?
Do endorsements matter in your decision?
Thoughts?
Kate, do you know if Jim McGovern has any interest in running for the seat? He certainly represents my priorities, I’d love to see him give it a go. How do you think he’d do in a state wide contest?
He told the Worcester Telegram
. Too bad, probably our most progressive candidate. Apparently Lynchie is testing the waters for some reason. If it was Lynchie and Brown maybe Jill Stein might finally win something.
I hadn’t seen that in the T&G
as the biggest, if not the only, conservative in the primary he could carry a divided field. Then what is Brown going to do, run to Lynch’s left? (Weld could pull that off though.)
Weld v Lynch would be like Weld v Silber. Unless Lynchie flip flopped on choice and lied about why he voted against Obamacare (he could argue it was a no from the left). In that instance I would welcome a Jill Stein or a progressive candidate running as an indy.
Lynch has little to distinguish himself on except labor support. Dems will need major contributions from energized activists to win a special election vs. Brown and Lynch won’t inspire that. I won’t work for him, that’s for sure.
The Dems are all likely to have similar potential voting records. Even someone like Stephen Lynch is more likely than most GOPers to vote my preferences more often than not. Therefore in the primary I judge based on more abstract things like electability, competence, and which issues they will give greatest focus to.
…will be closely matched for brevity by Mark Udall of CO, who was sworn in early January of 2009 joining Ken Salazar. Salazar resigned on 1/20/09 to become Secretary of the Interior and was immediately succeeded by Michael Bennett as a gubernatorial appointment. I don’t know about other MA occurences.
Closest was in 1924. Henry Cabot Lodge died and William Butler was appointed on November 13, 1924. A week before Frederick Gillett (R) had defeated Sen. David Walsh. When Gillett took office on March 4, 1925, Butler became senior Senator after serving less than four months.
That lasted only a year and a half. In an election for the last two years of the Lodge (1922) term, held to coincide with 1926 midterms, the very same David Walsh knocked off Butler. When Walsh returned to office in December, Gillett became senior Senator after about 21 months as junior Senator.
Only things even in the ballpark since then: Leverett Saltonstall was junior Senator from his assumption of office (Jan. 1945) to Lodge Jr.’s replacement of Sen. David Walsh (Jan. 1947). Ted Kennedy was there about 4 years before Saltonstall was replaced by Ed. Brooke.
If Rep. Lynch wins a divided primary, I wonder how many Democrats will sit out the special election, preferring to take out Scott Brown with a more progressive candidate in 2014.
If Dr. Stein runs for that office she might actually win one for a change in that scenario. Then again Markey and Kerry flip flopped on abortion, so can Lynchie I’m sure.
Nate Silver hasn’t yet done the actual calculations, but I would think Meekay the Cat has a higher probability of getting elected to the United States Senate than Jill Stein.
I don’t think her runs for governor transformed her from a credible candidate for a non-credible party to an outright non-credible candidate. Being able to say what you want because there’s no way you’d be elected can haunt you later.
I think she’s have a shot at second place in Lynch-Brown.
I think I’d vote for Brown. Lynch is John Silber 2.0. Brown may actually be more liberal than Lynch, and I’m sure there’s someone better than Lynch who can beat him in 2014.
Lynch is OK on some issues, awful on others. Not good enough.
Remember the Affordable Care Act fight? His vote was bought by the insurance companies.
He could always lie and say he voted against it from the left, but should be easily exposed. Abortion is a deal breaker though. Even Romney knew you had to pretend to be pro-choice to win statewide.
…IIRC Lynch DID say he voted against Obamacare from the left at the time.
It was from the right before it was from the left. Something like “we can’t afford it” and later “bad since there was no public option”. He also burned his bridges with labor though their primary challenge went nowhere (to wit a black candidate with a Hispanic last name was a bad fit for the Irish Riviera, the last mick to lose to Menino-Flaherty?-he’d make a good challenger).