CT-Sen: Simmons to run

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Are Republicans going to primary ourselves out of another Senate seat?

[Rob]

Are Republicans going to primary ourselves out of another Senate seat?

No, because you are going to lose in Connecticut with any candidate you can find.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Are Republicans going to primary ourselves out of another Senate seat?

No, because you are going to lose in Connecticut with any candidate you can find.

ORLY?

[Lunar]

I rarely mention this fact, but I suppose it needs to be mentioned more often.

Narrowly beating the more extreme ideological candidate often helps the winner of the race cast himself as the more moderate candidate for the general election.  Like, I don't think it'd be a bad thing for the GOP if Crist narrowly [instead of soundly] beat Rubio for the GOP Senate nomination, or if the Connecticut electorate saw ads run against Simmons by conservatives calling him pro-life, liberal, and so on, providing that Simmons won in the end.  Since Simmons will need to position himself as a moderate in order to win, to let his primary opponents make that charge for him (and for free) has limited positive benefits.

So a good primary challenge isn't ALWAYS a bad thing, depending on who is ostracized, who the establishment backs, and whether the winner is more centrist or more extreme.

[Rowan]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

Excuse me?

[Lunar]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

Whoah, woah.  He managed to paint himself as an anti-establishment person by beating Clinton, not necessarily a moderate...  perhaps a tangent, and perhaps an even more important issue, but Obama's alleged [?] moderate-status didn't come from beating Clinton.  They were basically identical on 99% of the issues.

He ran to Clinton's left on a number of issues, such as diplomacy (meeting foreign leaders) as well as the generic value of change.  He ran slightly to her right on the issue of health-care mandates and on vouchers, but it was fairly insignificant overall to the national debate surrounding their competition, I wouldn't really make that more than a footnote of potential irony. 

I imagine that most of the hard-core liberals backed Obama during the primary, so this isn't exactly what I was getting at.  Clinton herself seized this weird mantel of being the working-class, blue-collar hero that probably wouldn't have survived the general election, but there you go.  Obama was the wine-drinker and Clinton was the one drinking whiskey and chasing it with beer.

[Rowan]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

Whoah, woah.  He managed to paint himself as an anti-establishment person by beating Clinton, not necessarily a moderate...  perhaps a tangent, and perhaps an even more important issue, but Obama's alleged [?] moderate-status didn't come from beating Clinton.  They were basically identical on 99% of the issues.

He ran to Clinton's left on a number of issues, such as diplomacy (meeting foreign leaders) as well as the generic value of change.  I imagine that most of the hard-core liberals backed Obama during the primary, so this isn't exactly what I was getting at.  Clinton herself seized this weird mantel of being the working-class, blue-collar hero that probably wouldn't have survived the general election, but there you go.  Obama was the wine-drinker and Clinton was the one drinking whiskey and chasing it with beer.

Well he had to be perceived as some type of moderate in order to get 20% of the conservative vote in the election...

[Rowan]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

Excuse me?

You're excused.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

Excuse me?

You're excused.

You're not.

[Lunar]

Oh, he ran as some sort of moderate in the general election.  But I don't know if Clinton helped with that by running to his more extreme ideological left as you alluded (at least I assume you alluded to because that's what my post you responded to earlier was talking about).  Obama ran as an alleged post-partisan, which appealed to people.  The Clinton primary helped him with that image, yes, and the primary helped him with other things as well.

But my original point about statewide primaries was simply that if you are the more moderate candidate that emerges from a moderately intensive primary, that's usually a strong asset in the general election.  Some years that doesn't cut it (Rhode Island), but it still helps.

 It also matters on how the candidate being threatened by a primary responds.  Is Simmons going to hide from his Planned Parenthood endorsements?  Creigh Deeds is pretending right now like the NRA never endorsed him a few years ago in his own run against McDonnell for VA AG.  <---------- this stuff matters a lot.  But, to borrow a forum term, if "moderate heroes" emerge from a primary fight, they tend to win depending on how far to the left or right they have to tack to secure that victory.  Specter's own general election victory is threatened by his opposition to EFCA...

/ramblebamble

[tmthforu94]

I agree with Lunar. A tough primary isn't a bad thing, just ask Obama. He was able to paint himself as a moderate by beating Clinton who was perceived to be a liberal.

Whoah, woah.  He managed to paint himself as an anti-establishment person by beating Clinton, not necessarily a moderate...  perhaps a tangent, and perhaps an even more important issue, but Obama's alleged [?] moderate-status didn't come from beating Clinton.  They were basically identical on 99% of the issues.

He ran to Clinton's left on a number of issues, such as diplomacy (meeting foreign leaders) as well as the generic value of change.  I imagine that most of the hard-core liberals backed Obama during the primary, so this isn't exactly what I was getting at.  Clinton herself seized this weird mantel of being the working-class, blue-collar hero that probably wouldn't have survived the general election, but there you go.  Obama was the wine-drinker and Clinton was the one drinking whiskey and chasing it with beer.

Well he had to be perceived as some type of moderate in order to get 20% of the conservative vote in the election...

I disagree 100%. I feel, at the beginning of the election, yes, conservatives liked Obama, only because they knew Hillary well, and hardly knew Obama. But as we learned more and more about Obama, we started liking Hillary more and more.

My parents were not fans of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and my Dad constantly complained about them. But in early May, both went to the election booth and voted for Hillary, not just because she was better than Obama, but because they liked her.

If I could have voted in this election, I would have had a tough time...If it had been between McCain and Clinton. And, as you can see from my Political Matrix score, I am about as conservative as you can get.

[Lunar]

Clinton and Obama had almost identical positions on 99% of the issues so you must be easily swayed.  McDonald's value menu is only 99 cents.  Both their positions were triangulated for the primary audience and Obama made sure that his positions were similar enough that the primary became a battle of personalities.  Seriously, only 99 cents.