Is Roy Cooper ready to announce a Senate bid?
Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza recently speculated on The Fix that the state attorney general may be ready to throw his hat into the ring against Sen. Richard Burr:
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) will make a decision about whether to run for the Senate by the end of the month, according to sources familiar with his decision, even as a new poll shows him leading Sen. Richard Burr (R).
You all know how Dome feels about unnamed sources, especially in D.C. So we turned to our own unnamed source, whom we'll describe only as small, rotund and bald.
Will Cooper announce by the end of the month? "Outlook not so good."
Stay tuned.
Blog RSS feed
Re: Eight Ball: Cooper's decision
I feel your pain domewatcher. I was among the first of my peers to prognosticate Bush in 2004 despite public polling.
If I may be so bold as to offer analysis of what happened, this is almost more Dole's fault than Burr's.
Every state has and needs a Star Senator and a Wonk Senator. The Star's job is to raise money, win, and protect the wonk that actually does stuff. Our Star Dole lost, and in the minority aftermath, Burr not only didn't shine as a star but said no a lot to wonk stuff that would make him more effective in order to fill Dole's void. Burr trying to be it all to everybody is equivalent to Burr doing nothing, or everything half-bottomed.
Burr was still learning to be a Junior Senator when his safety net Dole got tossed by 10 points.
Now he's less than nothing, and bad at even that as his first "public outing" to raise his profile this week proves. Burr's neither a star nor a wonk and solidly outclassed by even more Junior members now that he's in the minority.
All partisanship aside, Burr contributes nothing to North Carolina now, and it's not his fault entirely. He just can't. He's already lost. Blame Dole, McCain, Palin, whomever you like. The guy just has no independent presence to break free from the stigma of his own party's failures. Burr was recruited by Karl Rove for a reason, and that reason for existence is long gone.
Burr, on his own, simply can't please the wingnuts and mainstream constituents at the same time, and he's ham-handedly trying to do both without Bush and Rove to guide him anymore. You have to remember this empty suit was a proud 96 percenter voting for Bush's agenda, including the bank bailout, before the bottom of his ideology bailed out.
What the remaining DC Republicans need to determine is if Burr's worth spending $20, $30, $40 million or more to prop up and even make it a close race even though he's still a goner. For the history books, they passed on Hayes and were right.
Still, it's a hard decision to make since the GOP has scant places left to go or spend money. So I still predict NC to be the hottest, most expensive Senate race in America in 2010. But only because the GOP giving up and going home is no longer an option. Homeless parties have no place left to go.
As for all the Big Drug, Big Insurance, Big Oil and Big Globalist interests that normally fund campaigns against the grain of voters, they seriously need to start considering who's going to actually be writing legislation in the future, not just who they wish would.
Burr will never be more popular in NC than the percent of voters happy about CAFTA. End of story. See Elizabeth Dole and Robin Hayes for details.