It is well known that John Carney is a weak, feckless, visionless, half-hearted Governor. He has no base of support inside of the Democratic Party. His only real ally in state government, Ken Simpler, was recently defeated…soundly. Carney is beatable in a primary. And yet, a number of things work against the idea that Carney could face a legitimate primary challenge.
John Carney’s very blandness could be a defense that short-circuits a primary. To turf out an incumbent Democrat, being disliked by a bunch of political junkies isn’t enough. Carney doesn’t have a long Carperesque outrageous track record of horrendous votes that can fire up less engaged primary voters. Looking at a long-shot primary, most casual voters would say “why bother?”
But even if voters were fired up to oust Carney, a legit primary a challenger would need to have an existing statewide profile. There are maybe a handful of people who would not have to build a statewide campaign from a standing start. Matt Denn comes to mind, but he would never do it.
Beyond Denn, the only person I can think of is Kerri Harris. She is keeping her campaign peeps close, but can she get her 29k back to the polls? Would her 29k turn out in view of the fact that Carney doesn’t induce the type of revulsion that Carper did? And even if she did get her 29k to the polls, could Carney activate Carper’s 53k primary voters?
Of course Carney could easily avoid a primary by not being so weak, feckless, visionless, and half-hearted this term with a strong Democratic majority and a undeniable mandate from voters to govern as a Democrat. But who thinks that is going to happen? Nobody.
