Scott Brown gets a third challenger, and it’s a familiar face:
Democratic activist Alan Khazei announced Tuesday that he will vie for his party’s nomination to face Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R).
Khazei, co-founder of the non-profit group City Year, posted the announcement on his website and said he is holding a kickoff event in Boston.
“Today I’m announcing that I am an official candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 2012,” he wrote. “We have to grow our economy, create new jobs, and expand opportunity for the middle class. Together, we can do it.”
Khazei, you may recall, also sought the Democratic nomination in 2009 in the special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He finished with an unimpressive 13%, refusing to accept PAC and lobbyist money. I guess he hasn’t been actively fundraising yet this cycle, because his first quarter report showed him taking in only $2800. In any event, he joins activist Bob Massie and attorney Marisa DeFranco in a race which still (very noticeably) lacks a high-profile candidate. Khazei is the biggest name to enter so far, but Democratic power-brokers are undoubtedly still holding out for someone more prominent (and with more experience) to take on Brown, the most vulnerable Republican incumbent up for re-election next year.
It’s still only April, but given how blue Massachusetts is, and the fact that Barack Obama will be at the top of the ticket, the lack of a top-tier candidate at this stage has a lot of people feeling like it’s getting late early around here. You’d think someone big would want to jump in the race already, so why hasn’t anyone? Hard to say, but we’ll see if this state of affairs changes any time soon.
Khazei really failed to impress in the special election, but then again, so did everyone’s Great White Hope, Rep. Capuano. Maybe Khazei will learn from his Feingoldian errors this time around. He did get a couple of impressive endorsements.
But in 1978, two-term incumbent Edward Brooke lost to Paul Tsongas for little reason. It was a good year for Republicans, he was very moderate and had built up incumbency and good will, and still lost. Simply because Massachusetts is such a hard state for Republicans to win on a Federal level.
I actually have a feeling the establishment should quietly back Khazei; as he makes the best contrast to Brown. He’s an eloquent outsider who is thus free from corruption issues or any frustrations voters may have with the party machines, and he can raise a lot of money from the progressive grassroots. Obama’s coattails too will likely provide him a five point boost from wherever he’s sitting in the polls.
Mitt Romney trailed until the fall in 2002, and Deval Patrick looked like he was going to lose the primary for a long time in 2006. Brown wasn’t considered to have a chance at winning until about 2 weeks before election day. So a Democrat could get in next spring and still be fine if they can make up the fundraising gap, which will be tough.
There are lots of reasons no one has jumped in yet. Brown has a ton of money. He’s extremely popular with indies and even some Dems (apparently the ones who don’t pay any attention to voting records). All the polling has him destroying all challengers. Plus, with MA losing a seat, one of them Dem reps will be out of a job, and I’m sure someone is thinking about coordinating the efforts to redistrict the state and identify a challenger from the 10 reps. Basically, whoever loses their seat is probably the Senate challenger. Obviously no one wants to talk about this out loud, if that’s what’s going on. I would bet money that a rep jumps in within minutes of an announcement about the redistricting.
They didn’t allow her to self destruct. The “machine” just couldn’t comprehend a loss until it was too late…
I remember Joseph Kennedy III made a speech a few months back that raised a lot of applause and speculation. This guy seems like THE perfect candidate for a Senate seat– intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate and driven.
I don’t care about the last name, he just seemed like an amazingly attractive candidate.
Massie was a C-Lister, Setti Warren would be a C-Lister. Still neither are going to beat Brown. Chickenshit House Reps want to wait for the Kerry opening so they don’t have to risk their House seat to run. DSCC needs to make clear that the Dem candidate that challenges Brown is the candidate they’ll back fully for the open Kerry seat if they lose to Brown.
Patrick, Kennedy or Capuano would be the A-List.
Even if Scott Brown will be tough to beat, running now would be the perfect way to build a statewide profile for a senate run if/when Kerry gets chosen for Sec of State. It just seems like if any of these people (Capuano, Kennedy, etc) wants to be a senator, running now would be a better move than waiting for a post-Kerry opening that may or may not come.
Does this mean Khazei won’t be running for re-election in Afghanistan?
Seriously, I’m thinking Khazei is far from the best surname to lure blue collar catholics away from a Don Draper lookalike (I was going to say Bobby Kennedy, but not in MA where they remember what the Kennedys used to look like, not just the actors who have played them).
He has a love-hate relationship with state Democrats. The state party doesn’t like that he doesn’t use the traditional playbook (not taking PAC money, not making the usual rounds on Beacon Hill, not courting traditional power brokers like labor), but the reform wing of the party likes him because he’s a clean outsider who has done good work in the non-profit sector. He got the Globe endorsement last time and was thought to be a favorite of at least some of the Kennedys (although they didn’t play in the primaries, and only sorta-played in the general at the last minute.) I wonder if he could get an overt Kennedy endorsement early and take off this time.
Lets say Obama ends up coasting to re-election and winning Mass. easily(obviously on the last one). Scott Brown loses by less than a %, the Obama wave did him in.
Now, does Obama shy away from appointing Kerry to something in order to not risk losing the seat to Scott Brown in an open seat race? A Kerry vs Brown matchup in 2014 under this scenario would be interesting as well.
Then again, maybe Brown would retire at that point or run for Governor instead.
People have to keep in mind that Brown hasn’t been attacked by anyone, ever, in a systematic way. Coakley didn’t do anything with him, and no candidates have really stepped up to do so yet this cycle. Meanwhile, he still has the tea party enough under his thumb that they aren’t hitting him from the right. What we need in this race isn’t a top-tier candidate, right away; what we need is a bunch of rich guys like Khazei whacking the shit out of Brown on the airwaves from now until November 2012. That should take down his favorables in a hurry, and make it possible for a Democrat to win the seat.
if they’re trying to persuade Brown to switch parties. It would make the lack of establishment candidates, the praise for Brown, and the weird Barney Frank/Setti Warren thing make sense.
I doubt they’d succeed, but I wonder if there’s something like that going on behind the scenes.
Yes, Brown will be a tough opponent, but in an overwhelmingly blue state in a Presidential election year I can only see Brown winning if his opponent is even worse than Coakley. I know that MA’s electorate is plurarity (majority?) independent, and that is a major reason why he was able to win in the 2010 special by taking two thirds of the Indy vote. However in a presidential election the % of Dem votes will increase, so Brown will either have to win either more indys or take more of the Dem vote.
If Brown was a liberal Republican like how Chaffee was or even like Olympia Snowe then yes I could see him being a very tough opponent but he is only a somewhat moderate who generally votes the GOP party line.
Khazei isn’t that impressive. He is mostly a generic Dem but a generic Dem is enough to beat Brown in 2012 with Obama on the ballot. Circumstances could change and Brown could end up more resilient then any of us thought or Obama could end up doing worse in MA, weakening the coattail effect and helping Brown, but I think ultimately that Dem have at WORST a 50/50 chance of taking out Brown.
Now if we could clear the Primary…