Monday, March 28, 2011

Trouble at the Door

Trouble for Heath Shuler (NC-11), that is. Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell has announced that he will run against Shuler next year as an independent.

It's not trouble for Shuler because Bothwell can win. He can't. It's trouble because Bothwell has a progressive following (in Asheville primarily, but still), and he'll give them an alternative to Shuler, who causes occasional but persistent heartburn for progressives. If the Republicans can find an acceptable candidate -- big if there! -- that Republican will suddenly have an opening for taking the seat ... if Bothwell (another sizable if) mounts an energetic campaign.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Progressive here.

GOOD. Schuler needs to be run out of town.

Anonymous said...

As long as the person that goes in is not a progressive, who cares?

Anonymous said...

Talk about a freakin' DINO. This crock of a man wanted to be BCDP chair this year too?

I will punch whatever out of state "progressive" calls us moderate/blue dogs like Heath a "DINO" again.

Bothwell is going to hell whether he beleives in it or not.

Anonymous said...

NRCC is already running ads against Shuler, paving the way for someone...

Unless Shuler changes stripes, he's going down imo.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Teahadist said...

Meh, Schuler's checked enough Blue Dog boxes that us winguts have a hard time getting wee-weed up about throwing him out. Maybe the Republicans in Washington want to get rid of him, but I don't see it happening.

Partisan politics aside, IMHO he does a reasonable job of representing the district he's from, even if the radicals on each side wish he was closer to them.