Richard Burr Losing in Possible Matchup Against Roy Cooper
Thus far, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) doesn’t have an announced opponent in 2010, but one possible candidate would be North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. And even if Cooper doesn’t throw his hat in the ring, this is not the polling an incumbent likes to see:
In a recent poll of nearly one thousand voters across the state, Attorney General Cooper, a Democrat, leads Burr by four points in a hypothetical Senate race. NewsChannel3 asked Cooper if he will run for Burr’s Senate seat. “No, I have not made a decision on that. I want to serve the people of North Carolina and just need to determine the best way to do that.”
Given that Obama carried North Carolina, and that Burr doesn’t seem very popular, I find it surprising that Burr doesn’t seem to be trying harder to find a high-profile issue on which he can buck his party and partner with the president. Certainly, blanket opposition is a novel strategy under the circumstances.
12 Responses to “Richard Burr Losing in Possible Matchup Against Roy Cooper”
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April 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
NC’s last governor had been its AG, so there’s nothing difficult about supposing that Cooper could take the Senate seat.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Hate when that happens.
On your question about Burr partnering with Obama, it’s clear that he’s betting on Obama to fail between now and the election. I wouldn’t say that Burr has gone all in yet. He can always change his colors late this year or early 2010 and pick just enough issues to try to draw in indies.
His fear right now would be getting primaried if he goes too far off the GOP reservation. Setting aside the fact that Burr is a bit of a wingnut anyway.
John
April 29th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
He did “partner with Obama” on voting for the Wall Street bailout. That’s not very popular with the public, though, so I don’t think he wants to shout it from the rooftops.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Burr may not have a choice in partnering with Obama. If he does partner with Obama, his campaign funds from corporate and far-right sources might completely dry up. We forget how much unanimity in the GOP caucus is held together with campaign contributions.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Burr better get his wife busy at those ATMs if he’s going to pull this one out.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Newsflash: Southern Republican authoritarian psychopath refuses to partner with “socialist” Negro. Pundits shocked.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I know Richard Burr is acting somewhat insane right now but must we have election speculation this early?
April 29th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
mds: no, Burr’s not a “Southern Republican authoritarian psychopath”. He’s a bog-standard pro-business North Carolina Republican. He’s not as batshit or stupid as, say, Virginia Foxx or Patrick McHenry, but neither of those two could win statewide office. He’s a less flashy version of Pat McCrory, who was the GOP challenger for governor in 2008.
NC basically has a Blue Dog Dem political establishment and a Chamber of Commerce-friendly GOP opposition. Jesse Helms was an outlier and a holdover.
If Matt read his fucking comments, he’d know that, and abandon this “buck the party” nonsense for Burr, whose best hope of bucking history getting re-elected is to hope that the electoral climate in 2010 is friendlier, and the turnout lower.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Um, that’s not actually mutually exclusive with “authoritarian psychopath,” especially in the modern GOP or the modern Chamber of Commerce. “Not as insane as Patrick McHenry” still leaves an awful lot of room. And I’m not sure how much his comparable voting record diverges from McHenry’s, no matter how much more reasonable he looks.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I second #7. Seriously, stop writing about elections that will take place 18 months away!! It’s almost self-parodic.
April 30th, 2009 at 7:15 am
To repeat what we have discussed before, Burr has little or no independent base of support in NC–in fact, he seems to be an unknown to large numbers of voters–and will need the full support of the state and national parties to compete in 2010.
Therefore, he is basically screwed, and he just has to hope that a generic loyal Republican can do better in 2010 than it currently appears.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Obama had huge coat tails in North Carolina, which helped candidates like Kay Hagan. The mid-term electorate is likely to be more Republican-friendly than the 2008 or 2012 electorates.