{"id":15101,"date":"2008-04-03T13:26:04","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T17:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15101.html"},"modified":"2008-04-03T13:26:04","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T17:26:04","slug":"the-wrong-kind-of-democratic-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-wrong-kind-of-democratic-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"The wrong kind of Democratic primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a Democratic lawmaker is letting his or her party and constituents down, it makes perfect sense to see a spirited primary challenge. When it’s unlikely that a Republican will win the seat, it’s even better — let the better Democrat win.<\/p>\n

We’ve seen a couple of good examples lately. In 2006, of course, Joe Lieberman was getting further and further from the mainstream, so Ned Lamont’s challenge was the right call. A few months ago, Maryland’s Al Wynn, a shameless sellout<\/a>, faced an important (and ultimately successful) challenge from Donna Edwards.<\/p>\n

Things worked out a lot better in Maryland than in Connecticut, but the point is some Democratic primary fights make sense. This one doesn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

South Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews announced yesterday he will challenge four-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg for the Democratic nomination in a primary that is bound to become a battle of the generations.<\/p>\n

“The people of the state want a choice and they want a change,” said Andrews, who is 50. Lautenberg is 84 and has represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate for almost a quarter-century. […]<\/p>\n

Lautenberg’s campaign manager, Brendan Gill, said the primary “will be a unique opportunity for Democrats to make a clear choice: Whether to choose Senator Lautenberg, who has consistently stood up to George Bush, or Congressman Andrews, who helped write Bush’s resolution to go to war with Iraq.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lieberman and Wynn deserved to be challenged — from the left — because they could no longer be counted on to vote with the party on key issues. According to Andrews, Lautenberg deserves to be challenged — from the right — because he’s old.<\/p>\n

That’s ridiculous.
\n
\nAndrews doesn’t even appear to have a rationale for opposing Lautenberg, outside of the fact that Andrews simply wants a promotion to the Senate, and thinks this might be his chance. With Lamont and Edwards, they could go to voters and say, “The incumbent sides with Republicans on issues that matter.” With Andrews, he’s prepared to go to voters and say, “The incumbent is an octogenarian.”<\/p>\n

Dems in New Jersey are obviously going to have their say, but given a choice between an old liberal lion who’s both effective and principled, and an opportunistic younger moderate who championed the original Iraq war resolution, the choice seems obvious.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, New Jersey’s Democratic officials seem to realize that.<\/p>\n

On Monday, when Lautenberg formally announced he was seeking a fifth term, he insisted the issue was not age but “effectiveness.” He was endorsed by Gov. Jon Corzine and all of the state’s Democratic congressional representatives except Andrews.<\/p>\n

Corzine and state Democratic Chairman and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union) issued a joint statement last night saying Lautenberg has their “strong support for his re-election.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jonathan Singer had a good item<\/a> on the race today.<\/p>\n

[Andrews] twice voted with the President to continue the Iraq War (Roll Call 425, 2007; Roll Call 220, 2005); voted against prescription drug reimportation (Roll Call 806, 2007); voted in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts (Roll Call 308, 2007); and voted for a constitutional amendment banning flag burning (Roll Call 296 2005). More recently, just in February, Andrews voted President Bush’s position on FISA, opposing an extension (Roll Call 54, 2008).<\/p>\n

In contrast to all of this “centrism” from Andrews, Lautenberg comes in with the highest Progressive Punch score of any Senator this Congress. Although it’s an apples to oranges comparison (because votes in the House are different from those in the Senate), Lautenberg comes in with a 93.29 lifetime score compared with Andrews’ 80.69 lifetime score. (Blue Jersey has even more of a comparison of their votes, if you’re interested.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not in New Jersey, but I know who’d I’d support in a Democratic primary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a Democratic lawmaker is letting his or her party and constituents down, it makes perfect sense to see a spirited primary challenge. When it’s unlikely that a Republican will win the seat, it’s even better — let the better Democrat win. We’ve seen a couple of good examples lately. In 2006, of course, Joe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}