Okay, more self-indulgence. Martha Coakley will be the Democratic nominee for Massachusetts in November, and — surprise! — the Republican candidate will not be the Tea Party’s rep. EventheLiberal Boston Globe is rather more than halfway into the tank for Baker — there’s video at this link of a couple incredibly smug young media Villagers literally giggling over the rich prospects for two months of mud-slinging (and advertising dollars). Props to Donald Berwick, who took 21% of the vote, or a good 8% more than I or the professionals I’ve been reading predicted. Now, fellow Massholes, go out and GOTV for the Democrat, even if you have to keep one hand firmly holding your nose, because Governor Deval Patrick and President Barack Obama need all the support we can scramble (see video, above).
Lower on the card, Seth Moulton will be running for Congress. Per Mr. Charles P. Pierce:
… Moulton is a veteran, a very sharp guy, as this interview with WGBH’s Adam Reilly demonstrates, and his family has never been linked to a corrupt international gaming enterprise. However, while Tierney’s political career is unremarkable, Moulton’s doesn’t exist in any real sense. He thinks we need “true leadership” in Washington. Wonderful. Enjoy being the ninth-senior member of the Post Office Committee. On the other hand, like Senator Bernie Sanders, Moulton says he’s in favor of eliminating the payroll cap for Social Security — not raising it, eliminating it — which is out in front of, among other people, the president. The latest polls show Moulton doing better against Republican Richard Tisei in the general election than Tierney would. (Tisei is popular, and he is also openly gay. What can I say? We have interesting Republicans.)…
To nobody’s surprise, Scott “Carpetbagger Centerfold” Brown will be running against Jeanne Shaheen:
… Even before Brown declared victory, Shaheen told supporters in Manchester on Tuesday she was ready for the match-up with a rival who moved to New Hampshire, where he grew up, late last year after decades of living in neighboring Massachusetts.
“I didn’t just move here. I’ve been here, working to make a difference for New Hampshire,” she said. “New Hampshire is not a consolation prize.”
Brown won a three-way primary, easily beating former state Senator Jim Rubens, whose campaign had won the backing of a new Super-PAC aimed at reducing the role of money in U.S. politics, and former U.S. Senator Bob Smith…
That would be Larry Lessig’s ghost-of-the-GooGoos ‘Mayday PAC‘ supporting Rubens, and Bob ‘eccentric political career’ Smith, supporting Murphy-the-trickster-god only knows. If you can’t run unopposed, these are absolutely the kind of flop artists you want running against you.
… Prominent U.S. Republicans, including Arizona Senator John McCain, the former Massachusetts governor and failed 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush had all thrown their weight beyond Brown…
If the New Hampsters can’t resist the clammy, crushing weight of all that Extremely White Aged Permanent Party blandishment, shame on them. It’s not like us Massholes haven’t demonstrated what Brown won’t do for them…
Don’t want to muscle in on MisterMix’s territory, but I’ll share NYMag‘s opinion on the big-ticket race there:
Governor Andrew Cuomo won New York’s Democratic primary, as expected, but the success of his Mean Girls-esque strategy of ignoring rival Zephyr Teachout is still up for debate. With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Cuomo had 61 percent of the vote to Teachout’s 35 percent (with comedian Randy Credico at 4 percent). That’s not exactly the landslide Cuomo was looking for, and the governor embarrassed himself through his ridiculous efforts to avoid acknowledging the Fordham Law School professor, even when she was standing two feet away from him. Apparently, Cuomo kept up the act straight through primary night. He did not hold a victory party (which would have suggested he participated in a primary), and Teachout was reportedly unable to concede to the governor with a phone call, as he wouldn’t give her his number…
***********
Apart from cleaning up the torn campaign signs and bunting, what’s on the agenda for the day?
SFAW
Who would have thought Mario’s kid would grow up to be such a dick? OK, I confess that I was out of NY before Mario became Gov, but I don’t recall hearing equivalent stories about him. Am/was I misinformed? Or did Andy The Dick just draw the wrong lessons from Barry Bonds’s filial piety?
OzarkHillbilly
Now if only they would throw their weight beyond our eastern shores, you know, to about mid Atlantic? Can we convince Cuomo to join them? What a d!ck.
My day is dedicated to the removal of all the dust, dirt, dog hair, cat hair, grease, dead bugs, grime, tub scum, sink residue, grass, beggars lice, etc that I and my 2 faithful companions have managed to accumulate over the past 2 weeks of my wife’s absence from our humble abode. Also chili sauce and apple preserves.
Then I get to go get her at 10 o’clock tonite, ugh. I already told her she’s gonna have to drive home.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: They should have had the Governor of New Jersey attend, they could really throw weight around.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hadn’t noticed it when I first read the original post, but I kinda like the rhythm of the Brown-supporters list:
failed 2008 Presidential candidate
failed 2012 Presidential candidate
brother of a Failed President, and soon-to-be failed candidate in his own right
supporting a failed former Senator, whom we hope will be a failed Senatorial candidate.
“Vote Republican: We Wear Our Failure Like Bodges of Honor. And We’re Working Hard to Make the USofA a Failed Country!”
“The Rethugs: None Dare Call It Treason — Because It’s Part of Their Platform”
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
Preparing for a 20 hour day at work, 18 hours of it consisting of waiting for other people to finish their part (but I have to be there to oversee) and then a 2 hour mad panic to find everything they did wrong and get them to agree to fix it. Its a futile exercise, required but not improvement.
Spent the last couple of evenings phone banking for Franken. It was too close last time & we need him too much to expect an easy win over a loopy gooper
Cervantes
@SFAW:
There’s more where this came from.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
Disappointing, to say the least, to see that.
Are my other illusions going to be destroyed, vis-a-vis Mario (not) pulling the same shit as Andy did with the Legislature?
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Heh.
@SFAW: Double Heh.
Cervantes
@SFAW:
The elder Cuomo did some good things, too.
Nobody’s perfect.
Shakezula
Shouldn’t that be “behind”? or is the writer such a conservative hack that s/he thought the word behind would make them look rather queer?
Raven
On da road
SFAW
@Shakezula:
Or maybe it was an offshoot of an old joke: “The White House threw Agnew a dinner. And missed.”
[You whippersnappers can Google “Agnew,” if you need to. As I said, it’s old.]
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: Thank you for working for Franken’s campaign. I’ve always liked him, and I’ve known that he’s a fundraising juggernaut. I haven’t paid much attention to the race because I’ve been trying to help other campaigns that seemed to need my $ more. But I see that even though Franken is crushing the Republican in funding, the polls aren’t great. Do the voters there really not recognize how lucky they are to have him? :-(
A recent Atlantic story about the campaign.
Thanks again. I’ll pay more attention now. Nothing can be taken for granted these days… :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Drive safe.
One more reason to look forward to death:
“Half of North America’s bird species, from common backyard visitors like the Baltimore oriole and the rufous hummingbird to wilderness dwellers like the common loon and bald eagle, are under threat from climate change and many could go extinct, an exhaustive new study has found.”
What we are doing to our planet is unconscionable.
Sherparick
First of all, that is an amazing vote for Teachout. Yes, in fantasy land it would have been great if she won, but I doubt most folks expected her to get 6%, not 36%, two weeks ago. And really, it is not so much the assholery of Andrew, but the stupidity is mind boggling, since treating Teachout this way also means spitting on the 40% of Democratic voters who voted against him. I mean in what Joe LIeberman fantasy land does he think he is going to win an Democratic presidential primary.
Iowa Old Lady
@Sherparick: Good point. Being a jerk in public seldom impresses the voters. Except for Christie, I guess.
Botsplainer
Anybody have any experience with invisible fences, hardheaded hairy dogs and heavily wooded lots?
Mustang Bobby
My ambition today is to get through a cup of coffee at my desk without being so busy that it turns cold before I finish it. There is a huge difference between iced coffee and cold coffee. Feh.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: Dems tend to frown on d!ckish behaviour where as Republicans think it is courageous and the mark of a Guardian of the One True Way. ™
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Except for any Republican. Christie just does it especially well.
MrSnrub
After being out of work for all of six days, I start a new gig today. It’s contract, maybe contract to hire, but that depends on new business, and I’m good with that.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
No, voters do not. They do fall for Klobuchers phony sincerity bullshit though so she is safe. Franken decided to be an effective senator so he does not appear on TV pushing his ideas for making toys from China safer. In retrospect maybe he should have.
There are a lot of knuckledraggers in rural MN – witness Batshit Bachman and John Kline. The historically DFL-friendly Iron Range country has always been more of the ‘libertarian’ form so far out there that they end up on the right wing. They elect goofballs like Dayton because of name recognition and empty suits like Amy because of the feel good stuff (despite her voting the Bush side of issues for a couple of years)
Baud
Booman
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: If the dog is hard headed enuf, anything less than fatal is just another day on the farm. I knew of one doberman whose owners left the house at 7 am. At 7:05 he ran thru the fence, got his ass knocked to the ground where he would shiver and shake for 30-45 secs, then get up and wander the neighborhood for the day. His owners returned home at 5:15 pm. At 5:10 pm the dobie would perform the fence ritual again so that he could be sitting quietly on the porch awaiting their joyous reunion when they pulled up the drive..
Belafon
What happened in the Lt Gov race in NY?
Sterling
It’s sad that Cuomo is very competitive against Chris Christie when we ask who is the biggest asshole in the tri-state area.
Kropadope
Man, nothing good is gonna come of 2014 or 2016 elections, huh?
Baud
@Kropadope:
I’m hoping we take back Congress in 2016.
Bruuuuce
I voted for Teachout and Wu, and was really disappointed that for the last week before the primary, big-name and allegedly liberal Democrats (including Mayor D) were hawking that horrid Kathy Hochul as if she were the Second Coming and a bag of fried communion wafers.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for the Dems in November, but wish they’d done better by us and we’d done better by them this time around.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Read the Atlantic story and sadly I agree. I have felt he has been way too low-key all along. I guess I better find even more time to volunteer, this may be closer than it deserves.
retiredeng
Longtime lurker here in MA. Had to comment on the MA/NH primaries.
My partner and I both voted for Berwick knowing he would most certainly lose to Coakley. He got 21% at least.
I was born and raised in NH. So looking forward to “live free or #bqhatevwr” Scott Brown to lose to a girl again! He seems to be making a tour of New England looking for a senate seat.
Alex S.
Coakley is such a horrible campaigner, she won her primary by just 6%.
Kropadope
@Alex S.:
And that’s the least of her problems.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Alex S.:
So this is the wrong place for me to get cheery this morning!
We got 2 months to turn this thing around
Kay
@Sherparick:
I’m grateful to her. She wasn’t just talking about the Morland Commission. What’s she talking about is a broader definition of corruption that includes capture of politicians and regulators.
Democrats can ignore it if they want, but some political party or movement is going to grab this and run with it, because it’s true and people know it’s true.
The “cost of corruption” is a good question. That’s what’s she’s asking. Who is paying when politicians are serving donors instead of regular people? How much does that cost all of us? It isn’t an ideological question. It’s a good government question.
Cuomo is running ads in Ohio where he promises business if they move from Ohio to NY they won’t pay taxes for 5 years. I’ve seen the ads over and over. That’s classic race to the bottom, and someone is going to have to either fill that tax revenue hole in NY or NY will cut something. Ohio’s already a race to the bottom state. He’s underbidding us? Nothing is free. Someone will be paying for that. How much? Who?
Kropadope
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
You’re right. Evan Falchuk for governor!!!!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Damn straight.
Cervantes
@Kropadope: He’s not bad.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That’s a fascinating thread at Boo’s place.
Kay
@Sherparick:
Lake Erie is dying. They’re dumping huge amounts of fertilizer into it, and it isn’t curing itself fast enough naturally. They have already decided in Ohio that agribusiness won’t be paying for this, although they’re the main culprit. But someone has to. So far, it looks like the people of Toledo, Ohio will be paying for it, and the federal government, and the tourism and fishing industry, not to mention anyone who values that lake as a common good. That’s the cost of corruption.
They can shift costs to protect whichever player has a more powerful lobby, but they can’t make costs disappear, not if they want a living lake. It isn’t a question of “will we pay?” it’s a question of “WHO will pay?” Because someone has to.
PurpleGirl
@Kay:
Cuomo is running ads in Ohio where he promises business if they move from Ohio to NY they won’t pay taxes for 5 years.
That’s interesting because by the ads here in NYS, the program is no taxes for 10 years. And I’ve wondered about how the tax gap gets covered because Andy also refuses to raise taxes on upper income residents.
Kay
@PurpleGirl:
Boy, it’s pretty blatant race to the bottom stuff. I know he has a more sophisticated sales pitch for the national audience, I imagine it’s trickle down, job creation, economic engine, but I’ve heard this before and I can’t see how it’s any different than what they’ve been selling for 30 years.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
“We’re all Kansans now.” -Sen John McWhollop
rikyrah
Cuomo Result Shows Progressive Racial Divide
by BooMan
Wed Sep 10th, 2014 at 01:02:03 AM EST
Here are some preliminary numbers on the results from the Cuomo/Teachout showdown:
The Five Boroughs
Brooklyn: Cuomo 67% Teachout 30%
Manhattan: Cuomo 55% Teachout 43%
Queens: Cuomo 74% Teachout 22%
Staten Island: Cuomo 66% Teachout 30%
The Bronx: Cuomo 81% Teachout 14%
Meanwhile, Teachout won big in many Upstate counties. This is telling for a couple of reasons. Common wisdom is that the Big City is much more liberal than Upstate, but that doesn’t seem to hold for the Democratic primary voter. That’s curious until you look at the how the boroughs voted and you realize that Cuomo did much better in The Bronx (37% black) and Brooklyn (34% black) than he did in Manhattan (16% black). Manhattan is also the home of a lot of Wall Street workers who actually like Cuomo’s brand of centrism. That Cuomo got 81% of the vote in the Bronx (28% white) and only 66% of the vote in Staten Island (11% black) is the giveaway. White progressives who backed the Teachout/Wu ticket did not make any inroads with the black community.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/9/10/123/89585#49
rikyrah
she has never met a muthaphuckin’ war that she didn’t want.
………………………….
September 10, 2014
Clinton Allies Portray Her as More ‘Decisive’ than Obama
“Allies to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are casting a stark distinction between a decisive, assertive Clinton and a pragmatic, deliberative President Obama on foreign policy,” The Hill reports.
“As Obama seeks to make the case for military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in a prime-time address on Wednesday, Clinton supporters are saying that she would have approached the battle with ISIS in a completely different way if she were commander in chief.”
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/09/10/clinton_allies_portray_her_as_more_decisive_than_obama.html#.VBAwigQHY_Y.twitter
WaterGirl
@MrSnrub: Good news! Weren’t you out of work a year ago, too, and landed a new job very quickly?
WereBear
@Botsplainer: Some dogs will take the shock — hardy types like Labs and other hunting dogs are used to shrugging off adversity, while a Newf or classic German Shepherd (I don’t know what half the breeders are doing now, this used to be an extraordinary breed) relies on their sensitivity and they won’t come near the boundary after one test.
tazj
I had an invisible fence for my dog and my property backs up to the woods. I don’t think my dog was particularly hard-headed but he would occasionally challenge the fence. He was a shepherd/husky mix and seemed to be more tempted by other dogs and people than by wildlife, though he would definitely chase the critters that entered the yard. It was funny to watch him look down at the ground when approaching the invisible fence barrier. He loved Halloween and was happy to leave my house and take off with any child who came to the door.
The problem I had with my invisible fence was that it was connected to the GFI at the front of the house. If there was a bad rainstorm, and water somehow got into the covered outlets, the invisible fence would be out. He got out a few times when I forgot to reset it. If he didn’t see me, he would come back by himself. However, one time he got out when I was taking out the garbage and I chased him around like a fool for the better part of 2 hours. A neighbor coming home from work finally nabbed him.
Living in NY state I’ve noticed those adds touting no taxes for businesses by Cuomo. For as long as I can remember people around me have been grousing about how NY state is so bad for business. Why can’t we be like Florida? In the last few years, it has been why can’t we be like North Carolina? I wonder if people would really be happy to lose the services we have NY, I know many people probably don’t care, they think they’ll always be ok.
Matt McIrvin
It appears the polls were wrong (low-turnout effects probably), and a united anti-Coakley constituency actually could have kept her from being nominated. So should all of us Berwick people have voted for Grossman, and should Berwick be regarded as a Naderesque spoiler? I guess it depends on how many really would have preferred Grossman to Coakley.
El Caganer
@rikyrah: She and/or her staff aren’t the brightest bulbs politically, either. Even were the President extremely unpopular – which he isn’t – she’s not doing herself a favor by slagging a sitting official in her own party. The guy has a couple years left in office, she hasn’t even officially declared a candidacy, and she’s putting the blocks to him in a pretty crude fashion. She might actually find a way to lose the primary if (wink, wink) she decides to run.
Suffern ACE
@rikyrah: yeah. She would have never left Iraq. We know. She actually liked The occupation.
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin:
Noticed that.
On the other hand, I was more or less indifferent re Grossman v. Coakley. The latter is a run-of-the-mill hack but at least she’s a female run-of-the-mill hack. And Grossman is no worse than any other run-of-the-mill hack except that he’s also an AIPAC hack.
PhoenixRising
@Kay: Can money solve the death spiral? Or will the 5 governments, including OH, have to…gasp…regulate the industry that’s poisoning the lake?
I’m going to miss the Holocene when it’s gone. Maybe we could get Jeff Goldblum to play the science philosopher in a dramatic movie showing the death of some landmarks of our geologic era?
Betty Cracker
@El Caganer: I’m not a big Hillary fan, but I feel obligated to note that the linked piece relies on unnamed sources to criticize the president’s decisiveness. Another source in the piece notes that, while they may have stylistic differences, PBO and HRC have very similar foreign policy goals. Also, if leaks about what the president will say in tonight’s speech are accurate, the only difference at all will be that HRC might have armed Syrian opposition fighters sooner.
If HRC runs, Republican ratfuckers are going to attempt to portray HRC as closer to John McCain than PBO on foreign policy to rile up liberals and / or PBO loyalists. They will be wrong.
Sterling
@rikyrah: Hillary has the awful tendency to think republicans and independents will respect her more if she orders American troops to kill more brown people.
She seem a little too anxious to slip on the flight suit, land on a carrier, and call herself America’s Iron Lady.
Kropadope
@Cervantes: However, unlike Coakley, Grossman had an idea what he wanted to do in office other than “be governor.” For example, he made excellent observations on the problems with our contract processes that resulted in the awful problems with the national and MA healthcare websites.
Coakley is running on pure boilerplate.
negative 1
What, no Rhode Island in a northeastern race roundup?
Well, since you asked, we are totally screwed. Our choice is between the eternally incompetent Mayor Fung who mistook not doing anything at all for an actual accomplishment or the poster child for Wall Street pension raiding Gina Raimondo.
Eek.
El Caganer
@Betty Cracker: If the anonymous sources are actually on her staff, she needs to get rid of them, because they’re sure not helping her. And if the shit is just made up, that should be brought out, too. Having a story circulating that the President and his former SOS are at odds over policy isn’t good for either of them.
And for what it’s worth, arming the legendary “moderate opposition fighters” is one of the stupidest and most self-defeating ideas I’ve heard in a while.
dr. bloor
@negative 1:
I was all set to excoriate Clay Pell for splitting the vote, but then I saw Taveras’s vote totals in Providence. That has to have been the shittiest get-out-the-vote operation in the history of organized politics.
AxelFoley
@rikyrah:
Now, wasn’t Hillary AGAINST the raid to get bin Laden? And didn’t the President go against her advice and sent Seal Team 6 in to murk him?
Who’s the one who’s decisive again?
JR in WV
@El Caganer:
I just wish I could imagine someone else winning the primaries to become the 2016 candidate who would be a better lock on winning than HRH Clinton, who has become a total bore in the worst British way.
Imagine a woman with real progressive ideas, who’s first thought in an international crisis isn’t “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb away.”
Imagine a man with substantial accomplishments, progressive ideas, good optics, maybe an athlete Rhodes Scholar who won the Medal of Honor yet still believes foreigners are humans too.
Hilary is a real dork to diss Obama right now, or ever, the man gave her the most important job she’ll ever have, unless she wins a presidential race some day in the future.
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
Funny you should say that.
That’s Charlie Baker’s campaign manager speaking, albeit slightly ungrammatically, not too long ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: @AxelFoley: Do you think that here is any possibility that the media is playing up stylistic and/or minor policy differences between the two in order to create a tension that really isn’t there? As BC noted, the two have generally agreed on foreign policy.
Kropadope
@Cervantes: Her Democratic opponents were on that point too. If you check her website or watch her debate performances, you’ll see this to be true.
Betty Cracker
@El Caganer:
Agreed. But I think you will hear PBO propose just that this evening.
@Omnes Omnibus: Unpossible! The Beltway media takes its obligation to inform Americans on policy details and provide insightful analysis very seriously. They’d never gin up a bogus horse race narrative for clicks.
Joel
Let’s hope Coakley doesn’t blow this one.
Kropadope
@Joel: Does it really matter? REALLY?
Cervantes
@Kropadope: Wasn’t disagreeing with you to begin with, but thanks.
Kropadope
@Cervantes: Haha, sorry, I was unclear on this. Around here, having what you said compared to a statement by a Republican is usually intended as a rebuttal.
RaflW
What a prig. What a poltroon.* That jagoff would have removed the “T” keys from the Governors office computers if he’d lost.
*Look it up, it’s the perfect word for Cuomo and his primary campaign.
Phoebe
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think there was a united anti-Coakley vote that would have gone to one opponent, whether that opponent was Grossman or Berwick. Part of my sense of this is anecdotal, in that I know a lot of people who would have skipped the primary entirely if Berwick hadn’t been on the ballot; they weren’t Anyone But Coakley voters, and weren’t motivated enough to have shown up for Grossman.
But a lot of it emerges from a look at the numbers and trends over the past couple of weeks. It was a low-turnout primary — voting was down by something like 20% from the primary in the 2009/10 special election for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat — and if you take the last few rounds of polling seriously, about 20% look like they made up their minds over those last ten days or so. During that period, it also looks as though Coakley lost maybe 10% of her earlier, soft support, and at the same time all the undecideds broke for either Berwick or Grossman. Compared to the special in 2009, Coakley underperformed by around 4%. But the plunge in support happened very late: late enough that it’s hard to see it as a reflection of a solid not-Coakley vote that would have coalesced around any single candidate running against her regardless of who that candidate was. It seems more likely to me that it’s something that grew out of the dynamics of this particular race, and that in terms of counterfactuals, it’s just as likely to think that Coakley would have crushed either Grossman or Berwick one on one.
Regnad Kcin
So long, John Tierney, you empty suit.
We’ll miss your hair.
Anne Laurie
@Botsplainer:
Short of stunning the dog unconscious, an invisible fence is just a mechanical reminder that, “Hey, your people would really really prefer that you didn’t cross this line, okay?” It works best on highly-pain-aversive (sensitive, or as you’d probably say, wussy) dogs, and on dogs with a well-developed “rules are for keeping” superego. IIRC, your Terv is now a teenager, ergo, neither of those two conditions apply. When his brain matures, around his second birthday, he’ll start remembering you have a mingy ungenerous conception of ‘his’ territory, but right now a mere predictable tiny thunderbolt is unlikely to deter him.
(That’s why electric fences work for prey animals like cows, sheep & most horses — their genes tell them to avoid risks, whenever possible. Predators, even semi-domesticated predators, not so much.)
Anne Laurie
@Matt McIrvin:
Perhaps I missed something, but I would assume Berwick is the anti-Grossman, and vice versa?
wuzzat
@Alex S.:
She’s just an awful candidate, but can you really be considered a horrible campaigner if you never bother to campaign? Isn’t that like saying that Sarah Palin is a horrible neurosurgeon?