While we’re talking about lessons to learn from the debacle in Massachusetts, two tough questions that need to be asked, discussed, and reflected on a great deal are:
1. How to get better at picking good candidates in primaries, and
2. What are the danger signs to look out for in a primary that might warn us a candidate that looks good in a primary will bomb in the general election?
More after the fold.
Some of you knew Coakley would be a lousy general election candidate. Did any of you suspect she would be too lazy to campaign effectively and would say a bunch of idiotic things? How did you figure out that she was gonna suck?
And what about VA-Gov? Did the Democratic voters pick the wrong candidate in Deeds? I think we all agree that his campaign strategy was awful, a guaranteed loser, and got even worse when he tried to sound like a Republican and turned off the base. But would Moran, for example, have had a chance of winning?
I don’t have answers, but if we are to benefit from this stinging loss, we will have to figure out how to get smarter in picking candidates who are more likely to win in state-wide contests, as we did in the Presidential primaries in 2008.
I look forward to any insights you can give on these campaigns, and more importantly, for the future.
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