PRIMARIES: HELPFUL. The lad is correct here. (Good on you, lad!) And Exhibit A for the plaintiff comes from Massachusetts this year in which rookie Deval Patrick was forced to run against an establishment Democratic candidate (Attorney General Tom Reilly) who'd already won several statewide races, and Chris Gabrieli, a progressive sort with more money than God. On the other hand, Republican incumbent Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey got her party's nomination unopposed and proceeded to embark on what will go down in history as the worst political campaign ever run that wasn't directed by Bob Shrum or Susan Estrich. Her public profile in the state not significantly higher than Patrick's was, Healey proceeded to define herself as Margaret Hamilton crossed with Mary Matalin -- but I repeat myself. If she'd been challenged in a primary, particularly if she'd been challenged from her right and had been forced to rely on her (apparently authentic) credentials as something of a moderate, we might have had a closer race on our hands in November. At the very least. we would have been spared the spectacle of the Hanna-Barbera Healey who ran.
--Charles P. Pierce
