National Journal reports on Democrats’ current state of despair:
It’s awfully unusual to see how dependent Democrats are in relying on former losing candidates as their standard-bearers in 2016.
Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold, Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak, Indiana’s Baron Hill, and Ohio’s Ted Strickland all ran underwhelming campaigns in losing office in 2010—and are looking to return to politics six years later.
National Journal continues:
The reliance on former failures is a direct result of the party having no one else to turn to.
As political analyst Stu Rothenberg put it, they’re asking "voters to rehire them for a job from which they were fired." Senate Democrats are relying on these repeat candidates for the exact same reason that Democrats are comfortable with anointing Hillary Clinton for their presidential nomination: There aren’t any better alternatives.
Across the country, Democrats’ hopes for a comeback rest on the shoulders of retreads like Ted Strickland in Ohio, who faces a primary challenge from young P.G. Sittenfeld, Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, whose repeated stumbles make him a flawed candidate.
The Washington Post agrees with the trends of Democrats running retread candidates, underscoring rumors of Kay Hagan running again for Senate in North Carolina:
Consider: The rumor of the day is that former North Carolina senator Kay Hagan (D) is considering a comeback in 2016. Hagan, you might recall, was unseated by Republican Thom Tillis in one of the closest Senate races last year — during the election that brought Guinta back to the House and that swept Republicans to power in the Senate.
Will the Democrats’ retread candidate strategy pan out?
Or is this cycle’s recycling of failed former Democratic politicians indicative of the Democrats’ increasingly thinning bench?