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Friday, August 13, 2004

A Schrader Campaign Scoop, Courtesy of Chris

Posted by DavidNYC

Intrepid blogger & cattle caller Chris Bowers has taken yet another leap into the world of real reporting, and he has a pretty big scoop. If you'll recall, the entire staff of Rep. Rodney "Benedict Arnold" Alexander quit en masse last week after he switched over to the Republican Party. It turns out that Alexander's chief of staff, a fellow named Brian Smoot, will be coming over to the Schrader campaign. It's not every day that a seasoned Hill staffer becomes available for new work, so this is a pretty big coup for a fledgling campaign.

In related news, Ginny finally has an opponent - Bucks County Commissioner Mike Fitzpatrick. Kos has the details (cribbed from Congressional Quarterly). Though CQ seems to think that Fitzpatrick is strongly favored, it looks like the Republicans did us a big favor (as they often do): They nominated the one extremist who opposes abortion rights and stem-cell research. (Everyone else looking to run on the GOP side was pro-choice.) Whether in primaries or in behind-the-scenes deals, the GOP regularly puts forward their least electable, most right-wing guys.

Look at what happened in California in the 2002 governor's race: Moderate Dick Riordan, who could have easily beaten Gray Davis, lost in the primaries to the hard-right Bill Simon. Simon went on to get beaten by the sad sack Davis in the general. But just a year later, when the moderate Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to leapfrog the primary process via the recall election, he beat Davis handily.

The lesson to me here is just blindingly obvious: You want a moderate candidate in a moderate district. I just don't see anti-abortion, anti-stem cell positions doing very well in suburbia. In fact, Fitzpatrick's campaign is already trying to deflect attention from these views. In other words, I think Schrader's in a stronger position than CQ makes her out to be, especially if the DCCC helps her with financing. Hey, maybe they can give her all the money Benedict Alexander is supposed to return to them! In the meantime, we can toss her some coin of our own.

P.S. Chris has also been covering the Hoeffel campaign, so we should be seeing more from him on that topic soon.

Posted at 06:53 PM in Pennsylvania | Technorati

Comments

I may have missed it, but I didn't see OH listed as a swing state. I'm a 76 year old guy and would like to make a difference in OH.

I guess I would be catgorized as a " Rockafeller republican. We " Rockafellr's" may be resurrected.

My Wife(69) and I were about to send $100.00 to the Dean camaign. The "SREAM" speech stopped us in our tracks.

We understood the situation, the pep rally etc. but apparently Governer Dean didn't consider it's impact.

Posted by: Dick Harmon at August 21, 2004 12:04 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Hi, Dick --

We *definitely* want your support. Could you support John Kerry on the issues the way you were considering supporting Dean?

Contact http://www.ohiodems.org -- they'd love to hear from you.

Posted by: osterizer at August 21, 2004 09:07 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment