Bennet Is the Canary in the Coal Mine

Town halls aren’t going great for Republicans, but Democrats are sweating, too. One of my Senators, Michael Bennet, had a town hall in Golden with Rep Brittany Petterson, said this after getting a lot of pressure:

Bennet was the first Senate Democrat to call for Biden to go, so maybe, in addition to getting bipartisan ski legislation passed, his superpower is knowing when people need to quit. I detect no other superpowers in this guy, but I’m new to the state.

Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of discussion on BlueSky about Schumer’s replacement, which is a good thing in general because the base needs him to go. He’s where enthusiasm goes to die. We need to put a good scare into Democratic leadership and he’s going to be our example. And this isn’t just a “circular firing squad” — if we’re going to do any of the things that I discussed in the last post in 2028, we need someone who gets it running the minority in the Senate, now.

The BlueSky discussion of his replacement seems to run aground on the fact that it’s a thankless job and we don’t want to subject some of our “stars” to the experience. Elizabeth Warren is one example that comes up often.

Warren’s great, but I have another suggestion: Patty Murray. She’s 74, so she doesn’t look in the mirror and see a President, like some of the younger Senators (Schatz is a good example). She’s vice-chair of Appropriations, so she knows the nuts and bolts of the budget: she and Rosa DeLauro were the authors of the clean 30-day CR that was going to be the alternative to the dirty CR before Schumer caved. And, she’s been consistently forceful and right in her public statements.

We don’t need someone electrifying or charismatic (though I think Murray has her own kind of “mom in tennis shoes” charisma). She’s the most senior serving Democrat. If Schumer quits, her seniority and knowledge of the Senate are two reasons that institutionalists might accept her, over next-in-line Dick Durbin, who would be worse than Schumer.