Democratic senatorial candidates vie to be seen as outsiders

Feb 22, 2010 — Washington Post

Shailagh Murray

Chris Coons wants to be a Democratic Senate incumbent. But don't mistake him for one just yet.

Coons, the New Castle County executive in Delaware, is one of a handful of Democrats vying to win races in open seats that could swing the balance of power in the Senate. These challengers are seizing on the sour national mood to cast themselves as reform-minded outsiders, willing to drive a wedge between themselves and Democratic leaders as they vow to shake up the political establishment that their party controls.

In Missouri, Democratic candidate Robin Carnahan pronounced "I'm disappointed" when President Obama released his budget early this month. "Missouri families have to balance their checkbooks, and our government should be no different," Carnahan lectured the White House.

In Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal shrugged off the prospect of an Obama campaign visit as "an open question" and has steered clear of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, whose poor reelection prospects contributed to his decision to retire. "I have been independent of Senator Dodd and everyone else in Washington," Blumenthal, the state attorney general, told Yale University students last week.

It is this message the public is demanding, said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin. "This is a change electorate, much as it was in 2008, and the thing they want to change is how Washington works," he said.

Coons was encouraged to enter the Senate race in Delaware by Vice President Biden, after Biden's son Beau decided not to run. But Coons said he has grown increasingly frustrated with what he views as his party's inadequate response to urgent problems. He thinks the Democratic health-care bill is overly ambitious, and he complains that federal stimulus funds are flowing too slowly.

Having battled the economic crisis from the front line of local government, Coons lamented: "I saw a Washington that was often dysfunctional and more often part of the problem than part of the solution."

This outsider formula is hardly original. Republican Scott P. Brown scored a huge upset in the Massachusetts special senatorial election last month by playing down his party affiliation and casting himself as a feisty independent who shares voter contempt for the status quo.

Nor is the party establishment discouraging its challengers from adopting Brown's approach. "If he can do it, why can't our Democrats?" said Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

To be sure, the party is desperate for a winning formula. The landscape is so volatile that the Democrats' 59 to 41 Senate majority may be at stake. But Republicans may providing an assist to Democratic candidates in key seats where senators are retiring, by fielding challengers who have strong Washington connections and who will have trouble making the case they are outsiders.

In Missouri, Carnahan's rival is Roy Blunt, a former longtime member of the GOP House leadership whose wife is a Washington lobbyist. Blumenthal will face former congressman Rob Simmons, assuming Simmons defeats professional wrestling heiress Linda McMahon in the GOP primary.

In Ohio, the GOP pick is Rob Portman, a former congressman who also served in George W. Bush's administration. Both candidates vying for the Democratic nomination are state officials, and they are tying Portman to Bush administration economic policies.

Coons, a Yale Divinity School graduate with reformer credentials, lives in the county that is home to most Delaware voters. During his tenure as county executive, he cut spending, cleaned up abandoned properties and swept parole violators off the street. He will square off against Rep. Michael N. Castle (R), a political institution in the First State who was governor and also served in the House for nearly 20 years.

"We have candidates whose profiles are well suited to take advantage of the political climate," Menendez said.

Republican strategists remain confident that voters will eventually connect these Democratic candidates to their unpopular brethren who are in office, along with unpopular Democratic policies, such as the steep spending increases enacted last year.

"Voters are going to judge the election on what candidates are most in tune to their views," said Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

There are seven Senate races without incumbent candidates this year, an unusually high number. And four Democratic incumbents, including Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), are seen as highly vulnerable. With both parties battling low approval ratings and the public showing little faith in government, inexperience could be an asset and could blur ideological distinctions.

"This is a year where the insider-versus-outsider dynamic is more powerful than the partisan dynamic," Garin said.

One state Garin surveyed recently was Missouri, a swing state that Obama narrowly lost in 2008. Voters were asked which candidate would bother them more -- one perceived as "too much of an insider," as Carnahan is portraying Blunt, or a candidate viewed as "too liberal" on major issues, as Blunt depicts Carnahan. By a 16-point margin, voters were more troubled by the insider.

Yet public polls show Carnahan, who is Missouri's secretary of state, and Blunt running about even. "To the extent that people think of races in traditional partisan terms, at the moment there is a slight advantage to the Republicans," Garin said. "Once the races become engaged, I think we're looking at something very different."

In none of the races are the insider-vs.-outsider distinctions as clear as Democrats might like them to be. Carnahan, for one, is a member of a prominent Missouri family; his brother Russ is a congressman from a St. Louis area district, and their father, Mel, served as governor and was elected to the Senate in 2000, two weeks after dying in a plane crash. Jean Carnahan served the first two years of her husband's term.

Political analysts view the strategy as an opportunity for Democrats to remind voters "that the Republican brand remains damaged," as the Cook Political Report wrote in an overview of Senate races released Friday. "The insider message may make it difficult for Republicans to rehabilitate their party's brand," the analysis continued. "Republicans may be left with the argument that Democrats have simply made things worse in the short time they have controlled Congress and the White House."

Coons said running for the Senate never crossed his mind until Joseph and Beau Biden called him on the eve of Beau's announcement that he would not seek the seat his father had held since 1972. That year, Joe Biden -- a member of the New Castle County Council -- ran as an insurgent and beat a popular GOP incumbent, J. Caleb Boggs.

This year, Coons said, any candidate who aren't in Washington may have an advantage, because they are more likely to have experienced firsthand the economic turmoil of the past two years. "All you have to do is sit in a room with people waiting to restructure their mortgage or apply for a job," he said.

Voters are mad, Coons said, because they do not see politicians doing constructive work to fix the mess: They see gridlock on pressing issues, rather than "the president leading, and people from both parties participating."