In Colorado, the Obama Administration offered a job to Andrew Romanoff to keep him out of the Senate race. In Pennsylvania, we’re still trying to answer the questions regarding what exactly was offered to Joe Sestak. Now the attention has turned to New York and Steve Israel’s decision not to run for Senate there (thanks: Dad29).

Israel was given an ultimatum: if he proceeded with the Senate race, the White House would go to great pains to shut off every dollar in the state. With Schumer’s help, the administration would make sure all the big Democratic donors and institutional players kept their distance. They would show no restraint, even campaigning against him and raising money in Israel’s own home turf. Obama himself would come out to campaign in New York City, cutting off at the knees the downstate, Manhattan-focused appeal Israel would have needed to run to Gillibrand’s left. And perhaps most damning of all, given whom the math dictated Israel would have needed in his column, Emanuel indicated that the nation’s first black president was prepared to barnstorm through New York’s black neighborhoods hand-in-hand with the junior senator, employing his appeal to African-Americans to a political degree he usually avoids.

Perhaps it’s time we re=opened the file on Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton’s sudden exit from the race for governor in Wisconsin. Remember, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was being heavily courted by the White House to run for governor. Lawton was literally holding campaign events and announcing endorsements right up to the end of her campaign. Suddenly she dropped out of the race, citing “deeply personal” reasons. Lawton has never offered a satisfactory answer of those deeply personal reasons.

Given the revelations of the tactics the White House has used to dictate the participants in other Democratic primaries, perhaps some enterprising member of the media should ask Lawton again if she was offered any inducements by the Obama Administration to leave the race, or if the Obama Administration made any threats.