Sounds like a Class A opportunist:
Cahill has made little secret of his ambitions for the governor’s office but hasn’t said whether he’ll challenge Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, who plans to run for a second term.
Cahill is more conservative than Patrick and would have faced an uphill fight to win the Democratic Party nomination, given that the party’s primary voters tend to be more liberal than the party, or the electorate, as a whole.
Cahill had previously acknowledged that he was considering the party switch, given the daunting task of trying to unseat an incumbent Democrat.
“It’s just an option that I have to consider, given I have a governor of my own party who is, as of now, planning to run for re-election,” Cahill said last month.
A Suffolk University poll actually showed Cahill beating Patrick in a primary, but apparently he doesn’t have the stomach for that. Back in 2006, this race also saw an independent candidate, but the well-funded Christy Mihos (who is running as a Republican this time) pulled just 7%. Evidently Cahill thinks he can do much better.
The Swing State Project currently rates this race as Likely Dem, but that may change in a hurry (and also potentially mess up our lovely chart if Cahill gains traction).
RaceTracker: MA-Gov
share the same initials (I am ignoring middle initials).
Any idea who is the better governor?
If we call Paterson the accidental governor, what should we call Patrick?
If Mihos, or another Republican, is seen as a viable opponent then he could actually win this thing because of a spoiler. Even before this news I thought there was a chance the Repub could win it…because of Deval’s massive unpopularity. And MA’s recent history of electing GOP governors. It would be something if Cahill managed to win as an Indy. And Chafee winning as an Indy too. Thatd mean two Independent Governors. Last time that happened was 99-03 with Jesse Ventura and Angus King.
Is seriously thinking about giving Gov. Patrick a job right about now.
and became gov again. king was the fiscal conservative, versus dukakis’ economic liberalism. this could happen again in reverse, just with an ind, instead of a primary challenge.
I worked on a couple of races in Massachusetts in the last few years, and I can tell you that Tim Cahill is a Grade A idiot. For people unaware, Cahill was first elected Treasurer more or less because of a very clever and cute ad he cut which prominently featured his daughter saying “Tim for Treasurer!” He is a lightweight.
There’s no doubt that Deval has horrible numbers, but I don’t know if one could pick a worse state to go from Dem to indie than Massachusetts. My guess is that Cahill put little thought into this, and reasoned that because over half the state’s voters are registered unaffiliated, he had his opening. Not exactly sound logic.
Nevertheless, Deval still has enormous loyalty among liberal activists. Furthermore, assuming the Republicans nominate even a marginal candidate — and I can’t see them cutting a deal with Cahill to back him — and Christy Mihos runs again as an indie, there is virtually no way for Cahill to win a general. The only comparable situation I can think of was Texas-2006, when unpopular Rick Perry was challenged by Chris Bell, Kinky Friedman, and Carole Keeton-Strayhorn, and won with 38% of the vote. With two big indies on a ballot, the incumbents is almost assured of victory.
One other matter is money, as in how the heck will Cahill be able to raise any? Given that Deval is close to Obama, Cahill can forget national money, and because Cahill has never been well-liked by state liberals he will find the wells dry instate as well. The dude is from Quincy, not exactly a wealthy enclave, so I have no clue where he is going to raise dough from.
Cahill should have waited for Deval to take an Obama appointment sometime in 2012, and then challenged fellow weak pol Lt. Gov. Tim Murray in 2014. Murray would be much more beatable than Deval, even in this climate. Cahill knows he can’t beat AG Martha Coakley in a possible special Senate contest, but he would beat Murray head-to-head. Oh well. I guess there was a reason numerous operatives told me Cahill was a complete idiot.
To just use two of the most blatant recent examples look at Ed King and John Silber (the Silber-Weld race has to rate as one of the oddest ever). The flipside of Massachusetts being such a one party state is you have a lot of conservative white ethnic voters in places like South Boston who in a different state would’ve long re-aligned to the Republicans. Then add in independents voting in the primary.
If Cahil can’t launch a successful primary challenge to Patrick. Particularly given Patrick’s poor polling performance it isn’t the fault of the primary electorate. It’s the fault of Timothy Cahill.
He’s been a VERY unsuccessful Governor and has hurt the Massachusetts Democratic Party. I think President Obama should appoint him to a Cabinet position to get him out of MA and allow Lieutenant Governor Murrary take over. He could finish up Patrick’s term and keep the Bay State in Democratic hands!
I mean couldn’t Cahill win some of the moderates Mihos would need? Seems to me it looks like a tight three-way race on paper.