Against Boucher? Never happen.
Look, there is no Republican in Virginia-none-not one-Virginia Democrats would rather see in Washington than Morgan Griffith. Montreal would be better, but we’ll settle for Washington. Anything to be shed of him. Anything to get him out of Richmond.
But it won’t happen.
In Richmond, Griffith is a big, surly catfish in a little mud hole. No way he’s going to trade that for Atlantic minnow-hood in Washington. I wish he would. A lot of us would put up bus fare if we thought it would help.
Morgan is tough. He’s tenacious. He is a schemer. He’s fast on his feet. He loves a battle. He knows his troops. He knows history. He knows protocol. He knows the rules. He can be meaner’n hell.
In short, he’s the long of it-the quintessential Majority Leader.
No way he’s going to give all that up-no way Republicans are going to let him-just so he can fetch coffee in Washington for the next twenty years.
And then there is the matter of Boucher. Sure, he’s made a couple of tough votes. But this guy is no slouch when it comes to the electoral arts. He’s virtually a one-man economic development engine, who knows his local governments like no other congressman in Virginia. He will raise a whirlwind of money, and call in favors so old they’ve got mold growing on them.
The Ninth is a two-lane, small-town district-with small-town sensibilities, memories, mores, and manners. Griffith’s comfort zone is more city in feel and scope. More four-lane. If he has a tendency to lean, it is eastward, to Richmond, not westward to Gate City.
But here’s the thing: there is no downside to this match up. Democrats’ll either keep the hardest working congressman in America, or we’ll send Morgan Griffith out of state!
How bad is that?
Barnie –
That has to be the most Pollyannish, hoped for, “don’t throw me in that briar patch” spin I have ever read.
Griffith, should he choose to run, would destroy Boucher. Not only that, he would take every bit of skill he’s demonstrated in Richmond and put it to great use in Washington. Some folks are big fish no matter what pond they’re in.
As for Boucher… it’s packing boxes for him. He’d be better off thanking the 9th for the opportunity to represent them, riding into the sunset, and letting some other poor Democrat take the hit — and maybe come to the rescue in 2012.
I’m not saying it’s a lock… but Griffith wouldn’t be moving to a bigger pond by running in the 9th, just living up to his potential.
Regards,
As a right-leaning centrist Rick Boucher seems like the least of my problems. I’ll start fretting about Boucher once the Commonwealth has sent Connolly (remember, you can’t spell Connolly without “con”), Eric Cantor (can’t is right in his name) and Jim Moran (the guys at Ellis Island should have used two ‘Os’) back to whatever they were doing before they got elected.
Boucher seems like a decent guy who gets more right than wrong. Do the rabid Republicans have a legitimate beef with the guy or is he just a Democrat?
It’s no a slight to anyone to say that it would take a crow bar and a winch for any of the rumored candidates to unseat Rick Boucher. Them’s just facts.
Nimble analysis, yet Griffith is still a fairly young man, and presumably one with ambition.
Republicans may feel he would be valuable as a partner with Goodlatte,
and likewise, if Griffith gets in …….
…. he will never be elected out.