Democratic bloggers are mulling their chances of unseating Sen. Richard Burr.
On the statistics-minded FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver ranks the Winston-Salem Republican's seat as eighth most likely to switch parties:
Burr occupies North Carolina's buyer's remorse seat, which has changed parties five times in the past five elections; his tepid approval ratings suggest that he might not escape the curse. Still, Tarheel Democrats won't have the benefit of Barack Obama's coattails in 2010, nor are they likely to run into another campaign run as ineptly as Elizabeth Dole's.
But Triad uber-blogger Ed Cone is not so sure.
"People misunderestimate Burr at their own peril," he writes.
And Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen thinks all the talk of state Treasurer Richard Moore running against Attorney General Roy Cooper for the Democratic nomination is bunk.
"I can't imagine Richard Moore is going to run for the US Senate unless the Democratic field is cleared of viable candidates except for him," he writes. "He already lost one statewide primary, another loss in one would definitely be the end of his political career."
Comments
Re: "People misunderestimate Burr at their own peril,"
December 9, 2008 - 12:54pm — bellaparolaSeriously, Liam... Ed Cone is a very smart man and I'm pretty sure he meant that as levity, referring back to our highly misunderesteemed current future former President.
"People misunderestimate Burr at their own peril,"
December 8, 2008 - 3:27pm — liamSeriously Ed Cone... misunderestimate? The little red squiggle you see on your screen indicates something buddy. It seems Bush's legacy lives on...
With that said, Silver overestimates (misoverestimates?) the impact of Obama's ground game. Hagan outperformed Obama in nearly every part of the state with 1/10th the grassroots backing. For sure, Burr will not take this campaign lightly and they would really have to try to run a worse campaign than Dole did this year. But this will be an interesting race to watch.
My best guess is that Roy Cooper is the frontrunner right now. A primary between he and Schuler could be fun to watch. Moore would be a fantastic candidate, the equal of Cooper or Schuler. Cooper by 4% in the primary against Schuler if no other serious challengers enter the Democratic fray. I personally think that Cooper would better serve the state as governor, but that position's filled.