The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza
wonders if the Democrats are trying to dissuade Dan Coats
from challenging Sen. Evan Bayh in Indiana. Cillizza details the
Democratic assault on the new candidate:
First came a detailed dossier from the Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee running through the clients Coats represents
as a federal lobbyist -- including PhRMA and Goldman Sachs.
Then the DSCC released a video from 2008 in which Coats tells a
Republican audience he and his wife are planning to move to
North Carolina -- not Indiana -- when he retires. (Coats
currently lives in the D.C. area.)
And, finally, there was today's report that Coats had lobbied
for a number of foreign governments including Yemen.
Why might any of this make Coats reconsider his candidacy?
Cillizza continues:
First, Coats hasn't been involved in a competitive political
campaign since the early 1990s -- a time when things like You
Tube weren't even a glint in their creators' collective eyes.
By hammering Coats before he even becomes a candidate, national
Democrats want to make sure the former Senator understands what
he is in for over the course of the next nine months (or so)
and how much the media environment -- when it comes to politics
-- has changed.
Second, assuming Coats is committed to run no matter what
Democrats throw at him, the goal of the string of negative
stories is to change the narrative from "Bayh draws a serious
challenge in Coats" to "Coats, former lobbyist, returns home to
Indiana to run."
Sounds like a lot of effort to go through to protect what had
been thought to be a safe Democratic seat. Of course, I've argued
that the seat isn't necessarily safe even if Bayh has to face
John
Hostettler instead.
