Rob Andrews, Gubernatorial Candidate

by: huntsu

Thu May 15, 2008 at 03:45:04 PM EDT

But Andrews doesn't think that's enough.  He wants more.  I just got this in my e-mail (I get stuff from both campaigns though I signed up for neither):

ANDREWS ACCEPTS ABC-TV SENATE DEBATE
LAUTENBERG HAS NO EXCUSE TO SAY NO
Democrats Must Nominate Most Electable Candidate
Lautenberg's Failure to Debate a Clear Sign of Weakness for November

Weakness in November?  Oh, give me a break.  If this is the best the Andrews camp can come up with then they have nothing.  The whole "electability" argument that extrapolates general election results from primary campaign tactics isn't working for Hillary Clinton, and it won't work for Rob Andrews.  

This simply shows more and more that Andrews isn't looking to win this June, though I am sure he'd be happy if he did.  No, the reason Andrews wants a debate on New York's ABC-TV is so that he can get face time in front of the part of the state that has no idea who he is.

It's the same as before where he sued the counties where he had a bad line placement for open primaries but not the ones where he had good placement.  

Basically Andrews wants a chance to get in front of the North Jersey audience because that helps him as he prepares for a possible run for Governor next year.  Lautenberg doesn't want Andrews to get in front of so many people because that hurts Lautenberg as he runs for reelection.  Both tactics make perfect sense for the campaigns that are taking them, and pretending it's some sort of outrage is silly.

Lautenberg has already agreed to debate twice, which for a 70 day campaign that no one expected is really not out of line.  In fact, one would have been appropriate, since this is a primary.  The fact that we had 7,556,432,564,321.0089 debates for the Presidential primary notwithstanding.

So if Andrews wants to win this or any other campaign he really needs to get over this whole obsession with face time and start presenting real political and policy differences he has with Lautenberg.  Otherwise it just looks like opportunism.