MT-Sen: John Walsh out, Amanda Curtis in

[NHLiberal]

Walsh is a pretty awful candidate, Dems should have nominated Bollinger, they made a mistake anointing Walsh, he's going to crash and burn and they are going to lose this seat. Bollinger would have won

Bohlinger is 78 years old. That's too old to be running for your first term.

Well he did say he'd only serve one term, but yeah I agree that Walsh is the better candidate.

[NHLiberal]

Why bother dropping out? We were already going to lose this seat before the plagiarism scandal, and we're still going to lose it afterwards. All it really did was cut his odds from about ~5% to 1%.

I guess it does make Dems look a bit better to force him out.

It also would set up a nice contrast against Rand Paul. Not that his plagiarism was as bad as this but still

[NHLiberal]

It also would set up a nice contrast against Rand Paul. Not that his plagiarism was as bad as this but still

Rand Paul's plagiarism wasn't as bad as this. It was WORSE!

I'm not sure I agree. Walsh plagiarized a major academic paper; Rand Paul just used wikipedia summaries of movies to explain them in his speeches. I don't really know much about copyright law, but I'm not even sure if copying wikipedia could be considered plagiarism at all-- it's just dumb.

[NHLiberal]

Can't see Feinstein getting excited over the prospect of serving with Schweitzer

The prospect of losing her chairmanship is probably more imperative to Feinstein than serving with Schweitzer.

Come to think of it, Schweitzer's gaffes may be enough to convince him that he needs a legitimate venue to stay on the national stage, especially if he wants to run for President.

Exactly, I tend to think Schweitzer bowed out originally not because he was worried about the corruption issue or because he didn't see himself as a legislator (though I don't see him as one either), but because he planned to run in 2016 and he'd basically have to start campaigning as soon as he started in the Senate. Now that he's no longer a legitimate 2016 contender (if he was in the first place), he might be more inclined to take this opportunity, especially if it gives him a platform to stay relevant and redeem himself so he could run for President in the future.

[NHLiberal]

Harry Reid must feel like a moron

[NHLiberal]

Get ready for Sir Turtle to be the next Senate Majority Leader, folks.

How does this change anything? It's been clear for a good while that Walsh was going to lose, and some could argue (though I wouldn't) that this seat was gone as soon as Schweitzer bowed out. Besides, MT is not in any way part of the Democratic path to a majority. In a scenario where Dems were winning MT, they were keeping the Senate easily.

[NHLiberal]

The polls were tightening, and some here were convinced Walsh would win a tight one.

Yes, I even floated the idea myself. All I'm saying is that this doesn't change anything about the status of the majority.

[NHLiberal]

It basically does this:
     • Removes a plank of the Democrats' safety net
     • Reduces the Democrats' margin of error
     • Puts added pressure on Hagan/Pryor/Landrieu/Udall/Begich

I guess so. I just really don't think that Montana has been part any realistic path to majority recently, meaning very little changes as our odds get worse there (like 10% to 1% or something, that's a rough estimate). A win in Montana would have been an upset and extra padding on what would be an already firm majority.