I just got a form fundraising email from JB Poersch, the head of the DSCC and Chuck Schumer's acolyte. Poersch is quite good at political strategy, and he's discussing Senate candidate Kay Hagen in North Carolina versus Liddy Dole as 'the sleeper' race of 2008. It might be, and could bring us to 58 or 59 in the Senate. Much as the open secret of South Carolina is that Lindsay Graham is closeted, the open secret of North Carolina is that Liddy Dole is senile. She could lose if she acts too much like a bumbler.
Here's Poersch:
Kay Hagan is a great Democrat and a great candidate to topple Dole. As a leader in the state Senate, she has developed a statewide reputation as a moderate who can run and win in November. Her favorability ratings are already as high as Dole's, and Hagan doesn't carry nearly the same level of unfavorable baggage.
That said, Hagen supported retroactive immunity for telecom companies, didn't know if she would support Mukasey for Attorney General, and would not support children's health care (SCHIP) if it were funded by tobacco taxes (unlike the rest of NC's Congressional delegation). She might be a good Democrats, but she's also conservative.
Party organizations like the DSCC support conservative ideas because it is easier to raise money from business with conservative candidates while going to liberals, offering nothing and saying 'we need to get to 60'. There's going to be a lot of chatter about getting to 60 votes in the Senate, and there's a good reason to want to get there to break filibusters. But the reality is that the Senate is going to be conservative regardless of whether we're at 60 votes or 58, with people like Max Baucus Chairing powerful committees. We need more liberals in the Senate, not just more Democrats. We ought to go directly to the more liberal Senate candidates, like Al Franken in Minnesota, Novick/Merkley in Oregon, Tom Allen in Maine, and Tom Udall in New Mexico. Let the telecom PACs fund the DSCC and candidates like Kay Hagen, they get good value for their money.
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