Secretary of State Robin Carnahan brought her Senatorial campaign to Neosho Saturday and if that does not represent the continuing change in the Democratic Party's approach to southwest Missouri, I don't know what does.
Prior to Claire McCaskill's successful U. S. Senate run, the business-as-usual approach for the Democrats was to concentrate all of their efforts into getting out the vote in Kansas City and St. Louis, and writing off this corner of the state.
McCaskill proved there are votes to mine in the Seventh District. While there is no way Robin Carnahan will win a majority in this neck of the woods, she doesn't have to. All she has to do is energize the Democrats in southwest Missouri (and there are some) enough that they can cut Blunt's margin by five or six points and she can win a narrow victory.
That being said, Carnahan's primary goal has to be to define her campaign as something other than anti-Roy Blunt and to make it clear that she is her own candidate and not as Blunt defines her, "Rubber Stamp Robin."
Judging from the Neosho Daily article on the Carnahan visit, she is beginning to articulate her vision, and if she can eliminate the "rubber stamp" label that Blunt started hitting her with much too early and is beginning ot lose its effectiveness, she could give Missouri a second Democratic senator.
You know, Claire called Talent a "rubber stamp" for Bush and that seemed to work pretty well. Why wouldn't that be an effective strategy for Blunt?
ReplyDeleteActually, it has been an effective strategy for Blunt, but for the most part it has been his only strategy and he brought it out much, much too early. He gave Ms. Carnahan too much time to prepare a defense for it and the longer you hear something, the less effectiveness it has.
ReplyDeleteIt really doesn't matter what Carnahan does.
ReplyDeleteObama, Reid and Pelosi have created the perfect storm to elect Blunt.
Timing has a lot to do with a lot of things. Robin simply piced a poor time to seek election as a Democrat, in Missouri, in 2010, for office in the United States Senate.