tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8916319.post7303656288143262570..comments2024-02-22T04:21:52.003-06:00Comments on The Brad Carlson blog: 48 hours after it ended...Brad Carlsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10443466836095058736noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8916319.post-37511607024747852652014-06-03T15:11:49.634-05:002014-06-03T15:11:49.634-05:00I think what you saw is both a good reason to keep...I think what you saw is both a good reason to keep the endorsement process and a vision of how it ought to work. Endorsing McFadden, as you say, displayed a streak of necessary pragmatism. He is not the "best" candidate yet, but in the end was chosen because he was most likely to beat Franken. (I would have picked Ortman, but she came in a distant second in the all-important money race.) <br /><br />With Seifert, you saw the necessity for the endorsement. When under fire, his temperament is ill-suited to the task. He could have obtained the same result by simply keeping silent; there was no need to insult the delegates with bratty remarks and scurrilous tactics that were mathematically doomed. The pressure of the endorsement contest tells you things about the candidates that won't come out in a primary, but WILL come out in the general election, to our detriment. <br /><br />If endorsement works as it should, with the delegates picking the candidate most likely to win, and with the endorsement carrying the key to money and volunteers that will create that win, it's easily worth a couple of hard days. It's WAY better than letting the best financed candidate "buy" the primary and attack fellow Republicans all through August, only to deplete the funds necessary to compete in November. And then have the Democrats seize on those attack lines and use them against us. jerrye92002https://www.blogger.com/profile/01858692298982859775noreply@blogger.com