First Bob Bennett (R-UT) loses the senatorial nomination at last week’s Utah Republican nominating convention and last night long-time Democratic Congressman Alan Mollohan loses his party’s primary in West Virginia’s 1st Congressional District, to a Democrat who ran to his right. Is this a sign of a widespread “throw the bums out” fervor that might evince itself in November? The signs and portents seem to be pointing to that conclusion. Personally, I’m troubled by this because there are a great many fine people in both parties who don’t deserve to be swept up in this sort of tidal wave.
Our local incumbents all seem to have survived the primary. Some were heavily challenged (my rep “won” with 30% of the vote), others like Mike Pence were un-opposed. The tea party candidates didn’t do squat.
Its called, throw the bums out…Look, everyone is replaceable…even the good ones. Heck, how do you define a good one?
Anti-incumbent tendencies often extend to every representative but your own. It’s funny how people think, but that is often the case. “Throw the bums out – except my guy, who I like.”
The tea party candidates didn’t do squat.
LOL. Tell that to Bob Bennett in Utah. The Tea Party types are having an effect on primaries in lots of areas. Remains to be seen if it is a good thing or not.
Peter, that is whats different this time…either some are losing their primarys or others are retiring…trust me, my rep, Bart Gordon retired…I am so pissed, because I was going to enjoy watching him finally lose after 24 years.
This is what I see (lots of retirements sprinkled with losses by folks in primaries where they’d have won comfortably in any other year). Next week’s primaries, especially the senatorial and congressional races in Pennsylvania, ought to be very interesting. Arlen Specter’s run of good luck may have finally played out its string this time. As to PA-12, the race is tight and it could be anybody’s to win. It looks like the DCCC has thrown in the towel in the Hawaii race, where two local Democrats (Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case; who served in Congress for a short while several years back) refuse to reconcile their differences, and neither will drop out of the race for the good of the party. The Republican, Charles Djou, appears to have a big lead right now. I don’t see that seat staying GOP, though, after November of this year. But it’ll look bad if a seat that’s been solidly Democratic for years, and in the town where our our president was born (I hope no Birthers out there read this), ends up in Republican hands, if even for only a relative few months.
Arlen Specter’s run of good luck may have finally played out its string this time.
If Specter pulls out a primary win, anyone want to bet that Sestack gets on board with a special prosecutor to investigate the White House effort to buy him out of the race?
What’s most interesting about the case of Bob Bennett is that he essentially lost his seat because of uber right-wing money coming in from out of state. Basically they felt that Sen Bennett wasn’t right-wing enough for them since he was willing to actually go to the table and talk with the Dems on important issues. A Republican senator from Utah is not “right” enough? That doesn’t bode well for anyone…