Brown Bails
After mounting an upstart, underdog campaign, Matt Brown has come face to face with the hard fact that Kossiacks cannot run a campaign. Having spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads in an attempt to raise money, Brown was nearly bankrupt. Faced with a major fundraising scandal, he has now dropped his Senate bid, making Sheldon Whitehose the Democrat nominee.
Some are making the case that this bodes well for Lincoln Chafee, as it is more likely that Democrats will vote in the Republican primary. Others are not so sure. Casey’s point is well made. Rank and file Democrats are unlikely to disaffiliate with their Party in order to vote in a Republican primary. To the contrary, activists are far more likely to try to do so in order to help nominate the perceived weaker candidate.
The comedy of the matter is that Democrats attempting to steal the seat by helping Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey win the primary could well end up helping to elect a more conservative Senator than the state currently has. Laffey is a far stronger campaigner than Democrat nominee-to-be Sheldon Whitehouse, and in a state in which personal interaction is an important part of competitive elections, Laffey would surely make the general election highly competitive just as he did when he became Mayor of Cranston.
The added bonus of the Brown departure is that the attention will focus more and more heavily on the GOP primary. In a year with a strong anti-incumbent sentiment, the populist Laffey will surely benefit in his contest against the epitome of the establishment. The Rhode Island Senate race has just gotten even more interesting, and the party is probably now going strongest at Laffey headquarters. Why not join in?