Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Murphy should step up regardless of Dodd's wishes

Everyone knows about the polls and Chris Dodd's political challenges in a 2010 general election.

With so many problems in his general election polling... and with real policy problems with his liberal Democratic base... I don't see Congressman Chris Murphy jumping into a Democratic primary for Governor.

Nope.

I'm back to where I was a year ago. I think Murph should primary Dodd next year. Consider - a recent Quinnipiac poll gave Dodd 55% of Dem primary voters against 22% for Merrick Alpert. But that also shows that 45% of Dem primary voters don't want Dodd.

I hope Chris goes for it... though I'm also hoping Sammy drops his Senate bid and jumps to the highly winnable CT-5! And for the record, I encouraged Sam Caligiuri to run for Senate in the fall of 2008. But after a year of campaigning and polls at 4% in a GOP primary, I'm beginning to doubt he can win the GOP nomination next summer... though I'm still confident he could get the 15% at convention.

Tim White

4 comments:

mcjk said...

Tim,

I really do not understand your support of Murphy and Sammy. Is it because you have met them or something?

I would think you would be supporting Peter Schiff; he was an advisor to Ron Paul's campaign.

This really puzzles me about you. You have talked about revolution and such and you see Murphy and Sammy leading that revolution. I don't.

Well to each his own. To me I say how can he support these guys and not Schiff.

tim white said...

Well, my support for Murphy is in the context of a Dem primary - not a general. And I really want Dodd gone.

As for supporting Sam Caligiuri over Peter Schiff - I know Sam personally. And fwiw, I feel I haven't opined much on the GOP primary because I am torn between what I believe is good public policy (we're broke = stop the spending) and someone I consider a friend. Furthermore, I haven't heard from Caligiuri on most of the major policy questions (monetary and foreign). So in that sense, I'm simply waiting to hear more from him... and tentatively supporting him, conditional upon his views being good enough for me, when compared to Schiff. As for another major issue - fiscal policy - I believe Caligiuri is a fiscal conservative.

Contoured Views said...

Tim
Wouldn't you think Caligiuri would be a better fit for governor?

There are a lot of options open for him, but I don't know if he has a chance at getting the Senate nod. I don't know if he would beat Murphy head to head, but idf Murphy goes for governor, he has a grat chance. I am sure the Dems will try hard to find a candidate so they don't lose the seat.

tim white said...

CV... there are tons of moving pieces here... many of which are contingent on whether Dodd returns to the real world... though I do fee he has a realistic shot in a three-way race... which may be an idea that Linda has in mind.

Ignoring Dodd though... I think Sam has a better chance of winning an open seat in the CT-5 than of winning an open seat for Governor.

So if Sam wants a better shot at winning, I'd recommend the CT-5. But I also think Sam could do a great job as Governor.