For those of you fellow [del]masochists[/del] interested political observers who haven’t gotten your RDA of bloviation (thanks for tiding us over, UK!), here’s a thread to comment on the primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon, and Pennsylvania–with a sweet cherry on top called the Pennsylvania District 12 special election.
Will Blanche Lincoln survive to serve her masters at BP another day? Will Arlen Specter pick a party and stick with it? And how does this, beyond the shadow of a doubt, spell the zOMG DOOOOOOOM of the Obama Administration and the Democrats?
Looks like with about 1% in, Ron Paul’s boy is up 49-45 over Mitch McChinless’s boy.
Per fivethirtyeight.com, it’s Paul 49%, Grayson 45%. No surprise there. Let’s see what an honest-to-gosh TP’er does in the Senate, because I think the winner of this primary wins the general.
I’m in PA. The polls are closing in less than 90 minutes, and the turnout in my county was pretty light. That may be because I live in a heavily Republican district, and the Pubbies just don’t have the fireworks that the Dems have.
Polls are closed in half of Kentucky right now; they close in the other half in 30 minutes.
ZERO drama in the Republican primary getting all the national attention. Rand Paul is going to spank Trey Greyson; I’m predicting 55-43. This will be talked up endlessly as an important bellwether of something or other.
The more interesting race is on the Dem side between Jack Conway and Dan Mongiardo. Conway is a Louisville lawyer and the current Attorney General; Mongiardo is an ENT surgeon from here in the hills and the current Lt. Governor. Conway is a great candidate who ran a lousy campaign; Mongiardo is the opposite. The polls have it too close to call. I think Conway will take it 49-47 thanks to big mayoral races in his strongholds of Lexington and Louisville.
I hope Conway takes it, because I think he can beat Rand Paul and Mongiardo can’t.
I also hope Conway wins, because it will make the general more interesting. I think Mongiardo stands a better chance than Conway of beating Rand because Mongiardo is a centrist, like most KY Dems, while Conway is a pro-Obama liberal Democrat.
I hope you’re right about Conway, he seems a decent guy. Don’t care for the carbon sequestration fairy tale but I suppose in a coal-rich state you’re gonna want to have that as a part of your platform. And maybe it’s possible, some day.
I just can’t get over the Enthusiasm Gap / '94 Redux narrative that is being framed for us the media at large, and since we Americans are such dutiful script-followers, I’m reluctantly putting my money on Rand.
Conway is a solid Democrat, but not exactly a screaming leftist. In particular, he’s against cap-and-trade. Conway can draw national attention and money and local enthusiasm in a way that a blue dog like Mongiardo just can’t. That enthusiasm is going to have to be there to counter Rand Paul and the army of Paulbots.
Besides, Mongiardo is kind of a jackass (and I’m on a first-name basis with him). He has the same problem Rudy Giuliani had–the more people know about him, the less they like him. I know ardent “Friends of Coal” types who find his aggressive fellatio of the coal companies off-putting. I think Rand Paul would crush him.
With a little over 1/3 of precincts reporting, Sestak leads Specter 51.1% to 48.9%. Sounds pretty close, but up to about half an hour ago, Specter was leading Sestak. The rural counties are posting some huge margins for Sestak: Elk, 60.1 Sestak - 39.9 Specter; Lancaster 63.6 Sestak - 36.4 Specter; Lycoming 60.3 Sestak - 39.7 Specter.
According to TPM, Conway’s up by 7000 with 98% of the vote in, and has been projected the winner. And in PA, Sestak over Snarlin’ Arlen.
With only 11% of the vote in in Arkansas, Lincoln’s running 9% ahead of Halter, but under 50%. If she doesn’t clear 50%, Halter has another 3 weeks to make his case to the voters.
In PA-12, Murtha’s old seat, the Dem is running ahead by 11%, but with 39% of the vote in, the key thing is what parts of the county are still outstanding. One would need local knowledge to call this one, I expect.
Anyhow, the night’s off to a good start, and it’s got prospects of looking even better by morning.
Very local, I think. I was born and grew up in Altoona, just 40 miles or so from that district, and I honestly have no real idea. It’s a traditionally Dem stronghold because of labor, but I don’t know how the candidates stack up. Hell, I didn’t even know who the candidates were until tonight.
