decision to pull out of the race? That's what John Nichols suggests in The Nation:
Paul Hackett, who has dropped out of the race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination with his usual theatrical flourishes, says he quit the contest because of the pressure he claims he felt from national Democratic bigwigs.
That may well have been a factor in Hackett's decision.
But it appears that an even bigger factor was a poll that showed Hackett trailing far behind his progressive primary opponent, U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown. With the filing deadline for the May Democratic primary rapidly approaching, Hackett was confronted with new numbers from his own pollster, which showed Brown was ahead among likely voters by an almost 2-1 margin -- 46 percent for the congressman to 24 percent for Hackett.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=59896That and the prospect of not being able to raise the kind of money he'd need to run a viable statewide primary campaign with Brown in the race may have been the writing on the wall for Hackett. Rather than he "backed down" to pressure, he may have just recognized the bottom line realities of whether or not he could run a viable and successful primary campaign.
I recall when Bob Matsui died, by the time his wife declared for his seat out here in California a few days later, she had the backing of party leaders and major donors. While we had long time local Dem pols who wanted to run and would have made good candidates (fairly safe Dem seat), it was made clear to them that they wouldn't get funding or support or the gratitude of their party if they ran. So they didn't. Some of us would have liked to have at least had a choice in the candidate but that's the way it went down.