June Primaries

Last night I watched as every network, pundit, Politico, Karl Rove predicted Bill Halter would win the Democratic primary in Arkansas. Virtually everyone in the Beltway predicted it. So there is a lesson here--the pundits don't know anything and they are overpaid to not know anything. It was an early night as Blanche Lincoln won her primary. Either way, it looks like the next Senator from Arkansas will be the extreme-right wing Republican Boozman. Of course, Blanche received a little help with some suspicious closing of stations in her rival's areas of strength.

The sultry Sikh Nikki Haley is on the verge of winning the Republican nominee for Governor of South Carolina. She promises to resign if people really prove she had two affairs. In the state, the shocker for Republicans was that incumbent congressman Bob Inglis looks like he will lose the run-off to an even farther right-winger. The other upset was the impossible victory of Alvin Greene, an unemployed vet, as the Democratic nominee to run against Jim DeMint.

It was not a good night for Mike Huckabee, almost all the candidates he backed lost their primary bids. The good news is that all of them were from the Christian Right. Sarah Palin endorsements have been hailed as important but on closer look that doesn't look like much. She backed Nikki Haley, and the California girls, but her congressional candidates lost. Even the Chicken Lady, Sue Lowden, who was backed by Palin, lost. And Palin's previous support in Idaho boom-a-ranged on the candidate.

As for the great new hot shots picked by the Republican Congressional Committee, all three in Iowa lost and four others have lost in previous primaries. These were the hand-picked candidates of the party, who were given wads of money. They were beaten by people who had served in elected office before and campaigned on local, not national issues.

The new theme of the media is that this is the year of Conservative Women. I guess the anti-incumbent theme was not working out. But to make that work, you have to include Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman as conservatives and not robber barons. Whitman spent an astonishing $70 million of her own money to win the Republican primary in California; Fiorina $7 million of her own. While both went hard-right, it's ironic that both had contributed to the Gore and Boxer campaigns in the past. The only real right-wing high profile winner last night was Susan Angle, the John Bircher woman in Nevada.

In the anti-incumbent fever generated by the media, someone walked back the Gallup polls over the last two decades where over 40% of Americans didn't want their own congressman elected. Comparing the years with return of the incumbent, this blogger found that it was roughly 85% incumbents being re-elected. This person explained that this was logical because our system is a majority system and roughly 40% of Americans always want their incumbent out.

There is nothing in last night's elections that given any clue of some over-arching theme this year. In Nevada, it looks like voters will split their ticket--vote against Rory Reid, and vote for Harry. The Republicans actually nominated someone normal in Brian Sandoval, who beat sex-scandal plagued Gibbons. The great GOP targeting of Harry Reid is looking like it's going up in smoke.

Americans don't seem to care for rank amateurs. Jerry Brown easily won the Democratic nomination for governor in California; and former Governor Terry Branstad won the Republican nod in Iowa. And, Obama as the Black Bogeyman seems only to work in the already Republican south. People seem more interested in local affairs and not the political line du jour. Even the "white supremacists" in Montana didn't pull off the coup in the Republican primaries. Maybe Americans really don't like overtly creepy people.

I was devastated by the loss of Moldovan-Israeli karate expert Orly Taitz, the Queen of the Birthers. It would have made the Secretary of State race in California interesting.

Even Judge Roberts embrace of America by the corporations, for the corporations doesn't seem to be panning out so well. The Supreme Court has knocked out the Arizona Fair Elections law, which would have allowed state funding of elections. The timing would benefit John McCain but no one else. But even still, the heavily corporate funded Republican "hot shots" lost. The wealthy candidates like Whitman, Fiorina and Linda McMahon have won but on their own dime.

So far, I'm still at a traditional view of the 2010 election--usual losses of the president's party according to historical lines--nothing so dramatic.

I keep watching the Texas governor's race. it seems the GOP is taking no chances but trying to facilitate the Green Party getting on the ballot.