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Giving Cantwell a pass might boost 2 GOP hopefuls
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Sep 11, 2011 12:06pm |
| Category | Speculative |
| News Date | Aug 28, 2011 12:05pm |
| Description | Republican Reagan Dunn figures his chances of becoming Washington's next attorney general improve if his party doesn't put up much of a fight to prevent U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell's re-election in 2012.
In his view, Democratic Party strategists consider her a comfortable enough incumbent so they won't need to invest gobs of time and money helping her.
Engaging the two-term incumbent too fiercely with a challenger will cause the party to change course and bring its political machinery to Washington where it will raise money, make noise and muffle the sights and sounds of his campaign against Democrat Bob Ferguson.
This effect could domino up and down the ticket.
Dunn's remembering what happened in last year's hard fought contest between U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Republican Dino Rossi. A late multi-million dollar push for voters funded by Democrats secured Murray's victory while boosting vote totals of Democratic candidates farther down the ballot.
"That really hurt Republicans," Dunn said. "So on (this Senate) race my belief is we don't put anybody up. Make it a nominal challenge. Keep the national Democratic fundraising apparatus out of the state and don't give them another reason to bring (President) Barack Obama here to further drive up turnout."
A fellow student in this school of thought is Cantwell's former campaign manager Ron Dotzauer of Snohomish.
"Reagan Dunn's correct," he said. "The best thing that could happen for him and for (Republican candidate for governor) Rob McKenna is if Maria Cantwell gets a pass." |
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