Reid's decision, like the 2010 retirement of Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, may create one of the rare cases in which an open seat is easier for a party to defend than the incumbent. Nevada has been swinging strongly Democratic in presidential years, as the party's machinery turns out Hispanic votes and wins by landslide margins in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. Barack Obama won the state twice; even John Kerry had strongly competed for it, losing by only 2.6 percentage points....Sounds good, I guess. So who's the bright light in the party who'll take the torch from Reid?
Reid's preferred successor is rumored to be Catherine Cortez Masto, the attorney general who'd been term-limited out of office in 2014. It's exceedingly unlikely that Reid, who never lost his grip on his political operation, would have made this announcement without some assurance that Masto or another strong Democrat would run to replace him.Strong Democrat? Really? Um, nobody's polled Cortez Masto since 2012, but the last time someone did (Public Policy Polling), the numbers weren't great:
Q5 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Catherine Cortez Masto?That's the rising star who's going to hold the seat for the Democrats? Oh, terrific.
Favorable........................................................ 24%
Unfavorable .................................................... 22%
Not sure .......................................................... 53%
* * * *
Q7 If the candidates for Governor in 2014 were Republican Brian Sandoval and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, who would you vote for?
Brian Sandoval ............................................... 51%
Catherine Cortez-Masto.................................. 33%
Not sure .......................................................... 16%
By the way, that 57% "Not sure" number came after Cortez Masto had been office for five and a half years. (By the time of the election, she'll have been out of office for nearly two years.)
Maybe I'm misreading the situation from my vantage point at the opposite end of the country, but here's my usual lament: Why don't Democrats have any stars? What's their problem?
3 comments:
Maybe I'm misreading the situation from my vantage point at the opposite end of the country, but here's my usual lament: Why don't Democrats have any stars? What's their problem?
Getting creamed in mid-terms is part of the problem. Also, the crap that does get into office stinks. Reid's "political machine" sure hasn't been much help statewide besides himself, has it? Reid couldn't even get his son elected to a state level office recently. If you were state AG, and had aspirations for higher office and half the state doesn't know who you are, that is a problem.
There's still over 18 months to go, so I refuse to get pessimistic - highly unusual, for moi!
She may be Reid's fave, but, I'm sure that other people will be heard from.
And the problem with the Dem's is, as you've often said yourself, Steve, is that they don't know how to, or don't market their rising stars.
In the GOP, some dog-catcher wins a US House seat, and, that person's Presidential material!
They'd say that, since all Muslim's are dog's - even though they supposedly hate dogs - then, there's no one better to take on Islam, than a former dog-catcher.
OY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"What's their problem?"
Politics is their problem.
The Democratic Party has allowed itself (painlessly, even enjoyably) to get back into the smallest corner of all: the corner of rational discourse, which, of course, has no overlap with political discourse. It is not possible to define conservatism as The Problem without defining politics as The Problem.
From a rational perspective, the problem with totalitarian regimes is not what kind of politics they have, but how much politics they have.
In other words, the game is the wrong game, and the prize is not to win it, but to end it.
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