We've all seen what's going on in primary races.
Pennsylvania - Schumer's supporting Casey, who, unfortunately, is most likely the stronger candidate.
Ohio - Hackett leaves the race, citing Schumer's support for Brown.
Illinois 6th district - Rahm Emanuel is supporting Tammy Duckworth, despite the amount of support Christine Cegelis has from people in the district and online.
Well, there are other primaries going on... I wonder what will happen next.
In Rhode Island, Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse are running for senate. On paper, it looks like a very competitive primary, with both candidates being clean so far. Mostly, the party leadership has whined about how pro-choice activists pushed Jim Langevin out of the race, rather than supporting anyone.
In Montana, Jon Tester and John Morrison are running for senate. Morrison seems to be moving ahead, at this point, and this has the making for another race where no intervention in the primary is neccesary, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some occur. To be clear, I'm not saying either candidate is being nasty, or asking for intervention, just that it would fit Chuck Schumer's pattern to go after this race next.
Virginia has a competitive primary as well, and it's clear that elements in the state party will support Harry Miller, though James Webb seems to have more online support. We'll see who Schumer supports.
Minnesota had a competitive senate primary, between Amy Klobucher and Patty Wetterling, as well, but Wetterling has since dropped out to run for congress. I imagine she probably had the same pressures on her as Hackett did, and Cegelis - a party leadership that wants to decide what race she should be in.
I wonder what will be next. I suspect Montana, though that could be a tough race. Jon Tester is slightly behind in the primary, and he has a friend, Monica Lindeen, running for the state at-large congressional seat. If he drops out, unless she decides to drop out first, it won't be to run for congress.
In Rhode Island, both candidates seem committed to run. For now, they're pretty-much neck and neck, but it has looked like Whitehouse has been getting more support from party leaders so far.
Personally, I'm going to send out emails to the campaigns of each of these candidates, asking them to make a joint statement with their primary opponents that they believe primaries should be clean, and should be decided by voters, not party leadership, which is supposed to back a candidate after the primaries. I'd like to see if some of them would be willing to pledge to ask the party leadership not to intervene in their primaries, and to simply run their race. We're not going to be able to put pressure on the party leadership, by this point, they've proven they don't care. But if we can put pressure on these candidates running in the primaries, perhaps they can put some pressure on Schumer to but out. And perhaps some of them won't - but it would be nice to know that before Schumer sabotages the other candidates fundraising.