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"FORTUNE &amp;#8212; Elizabeth Warren gets her prime-time closeup tonight in Charlotte, as Democrats hope some extra exposure could help them recapture the U.S. Senate seat they lost to Scott Brown (R-MA) after Ted Kennedy passed away. She is largely viewed as the antithesis of Mitt Romney, a godmother to the Occupy Wall Street movement.\nBut things could have been very, very different.\nAmong those who vied to succeed Kennedy was Steve Pagliuca, a managing director with Bain Capital since 1989. Before that he had been a management consultant with Bain &amp;#38; Company, where he helped establish the firm&amp;#8217;s business turnaround practice. And, yes, he attended Harvard Business School.\nSounds a lot like Mitt Romney, except that Pagliuca was running as a Democrat. He was one of four candidates in a primary that also included Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley, Congressman Mike Capuano and social entrepreneur Alan Khazei.\nIt didn&amp;#8217;t go terribly well.\nSocially liberal and fiscally moderate, Pagliuca told voters that his business background &amp;#8212; which also included an ownership stake in the Boston Celtics basketball franchise &amp;#8212; meant that he would understand how to help create jobs. He also pledged to be a solid 60th vote on Obamacare. Reasonable positions for the primary, but Pagliuca stumbled in the debate and was never able to create a ground-game that could compete with more established pols like Coakley and Capuano. He ultimately finished last, with just 12% of the vote.\nOf course, the winner of that primary &amp;#8212; Martha Coakley &amp;#8212; was a lazy candidate who was rarely seen in public until the campaign&amp;#8217;s final days (when the polls turned against her). She also made some inexplicable errors about the local sports scene (i.e., calling Curt Schilling &amp;#8220;a Yankees fan&amp;#8221;) that ultimately helped Scott Brown go to Washington.\nI&amp;#8217;m not saying that Pagliuca would have necessarily beaten Brown in the general, but just imagine if he had. Imagine if a Bain Capital executive had become heir to the Kennedy seat. Imagine if the Obama campaign would have had to figure out how to attack Romney&amp;#8217;s business experience without simultaneously decapitating their Senate candidate? Imagine Elizabeth Warren prowling radio row, waiting for someone to offer her a chair.\nJust saying that this week in Charlotte could have gone in a much different direction.\nSign up for Dan&amp;#8217;s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers:\u00A0GetTermSheet.com"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2012/09/05/democrats-almost-had-their-own-bain-capital-candidate/>