Now this is a surprise:
After lagging support from unions – one of his vital voter bases – U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-South Boston) said today he wouldn’t run for the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat….
“The challenge of putting together the resources and organization necessary to wage a competitive statewide campaign in less than 90 days is insurmountable,” said Lynch in a statement.
Here’s the take-home lesson that a lot of Democrats, not just Lynch, need to take to heart (starting with a certain majority leader whose name rhymes with Barry Bead who will need on-the-ground labor support to make it over the hump in 2010). If labor support is a key component to your coalition, don’t dither around on the public option.
So, that leaves AG Martha Coakley and Rep. Michael Capuano as the only elected officials in the race. What had once looked like it would be a 5-way frenzy of House members where the more moderate Lynch had a shot at sneaking through, instead has turned into a fairly easy shot for Coakley, the only statewide official in the running. Capuano’s best bet is to try to consolidate Boston and Cambridge-area votes and outflank Coakley on the left (although Coakley is outwardly progressive, unlike Capuano she doesn’t have a voting record to point to, so we have no idea how deep her progressive bona fides are). The only wild cards left are the entry of random rich guys who can fund their own way: City Year founder Alan Khazei confirmed that he’s getting into the race, and Boston Celtic co-owner Stephen Pagliuca is also sounding like a candidate.
On the GOP side, state Sen. Scott Brown seems to be the Republicans’ best bet… although he’s attracting the kind of attention you don’t necessarily want when you’re running for Senate. Although, c’mon, we’ve all posed nude to pay our way through law school, haven’t we? Uh… we haven’t?
he posed for Cosmo as one of those, Im a single attractive guy and you know you want to read my bio and have this, thing. If it was Playgirl, then I’d be doing some phone banking for him 😉
Check out that happy trail!
You mean the David here isn’t the famous male strip model DavidNYC? I always thought that’s what paid for SSP.
With the exit of Lynch, I guess I’ll support Capauno.
We have a race like MN-Gov where about 72 people want to run, and even races like CT-Sen where party leaders try and fail to clear the field for preferred candidates. So what does Coakley have on these guys that is making them all head for the exits?
I understand the difficulty of raising one’s statewide profile in a three-month campaign, but Coakley has no federal money, while these guys are all sitting on millions of federal dollars that they will never be able to use again if Coakley wins this primary. Seriously, a Senate seat will not open up again in their lifetimes, or at least until they’re too old to run. Why not blow the dough on a race like this? If they win, great; if not, they raise their statewide profile and set themselves up for a Governor’s race or some such.
They are all dooming themselves to being lifetime Congressmen, it seems.