I don’t have too much to add to J.P. Green’s analysis of the May 18 primaries. But here are a few thoughts:
(1) Blanche Lincoln failed to win without a runoff because she didn’t do nearly well enough in her old House district (the 1st, which is NE Arkansas) to offset a virtual drubbing in the 4th CD (southern Arkansas). She actually won Pulaski County (Little Rock), Bill Halter’s home town, very comfortably, and won throughout NW Arkansas. Since my own pre-primary analysis suggested that a large undecided African-American vote might be the key, it’s worth noting that the 4th and 1st districts have, respectively, the highest (24%) and next highest (19%) African-American population percentages. Without exit polls or precinct level data, it’s hard to say this is why Lincoln failed to win, but it looks like that might be the case, particularly since the black vote was tilting towards Halter in pre-primary polls. If so, this could be a danger sign for Halter in the runoff, since African-Americans traditionally don’t participate in southern runoff elections in anything like a proportionate manner. Otherwise, the runoff dynamics definitely favor the challenger, particularly if labor’s financial involvement on Halter’s behalf continues.
(2) The CW is that in Jack Conway KY Democrats nominated the stronger candidate against Rand Paul. That could well be true, though Dan Mongiardo’s regional strength in Eastern Kentucky, a traditionally Republican area where hard-core conservatives often struggle, might have posed some special problems for Paul.
(3) In retrospect, Arlen Specter’s long Senate career has been a continuing minor miracle. This is a guy who has managed over the course of decades to deeply alienate both liberals and conservatives, and he’s also known as one of the least attractive personalities in Washington, which is saying a lot. To survive after a party-switch would have been truly incredible.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
In a night of big political developments, the one that will echo for some time is the victory by Rand Paul in the Kentucky Republican Senate primary. Why? Well, for one thing, it’s not often that someone leapfrogs a still-active and very famous congressional father to get a short track to the U.S. Senate. While it may have been over the top to speculate about a “Paul Dynasty,” as one writer did following a quirky Rasmussen poll in April that showed Ron Paul running even with Obama in 2012, the story of Paul père et fils is a definite crowd-pleaser.
Just as importantly, Rand Paul’s win over State Treasurer Trey Grayson epitomizes the major themes that are emerging around the 2010 elections. (Unlike, say, victories by more “politically safe” candidates like Indiana’s Dan Coats.) Let’s review them :
(1) 2010 is the year that insurgents and outsiders overturn incumbents. Rand Paul is the ultimate outsider. An opthamologist who hasn’t run for office before, he set out to battle Grayson, who’s in his second term as a statewide elected official. And the Paul brand screams insurgent: Rand’s old man ran the entire 2008 presidential race as an outsider heading up a movement of outsiders. Rand Paul didn’t beat an incumbent senator—in fact, the incumbent senator in Kentucky, Jim Bunning, endorsed him—but it was Trey Grayson who looked like an establishmentarian, after he received endorsements from Dick Cheney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
(2) 2010 is the year of the Tea Party. Sure, other major Republican candidates this year have worn the Tea Party label—but they haven’t done so very well. TP favorites lost the Republican Senate primaries in Illinois and Indiana. Scott Brown, who got into office with Tea Party help, quickly turned out to be a moderate Republican. And even Marco Rubio of Florida has declined to follow the Tea Party faithful into a potentially suicidal endorsement of Arizona’s new immigration law. Paul, on the other hand, is a true outsider with sterling ideological bona fides. His win embodies the kind of success that Tea Party folk hope to achieve.
(3) 2010 is “about” fiscal conservatism and little else. Paul is a nice example of the trend—real or imagined—in which economic issues have eclipsed concerns about social and foreign policy among Tea Partiers and conservatives. He brushed off Grayson’s efforts to make the primary turn on abortion or foreign policy: Republican voters apparently didn’t care that Rand’s “cuckoo” views about national security are far outside the post-9/11 GOP mainstream. (On his campaign website, the section on “National Defense” focuses heavily on border security, while its foreign policy content is limited to attacks on the U.N., the IMF, and the World Bank.) Meanwhile, Paul has been relentlessly radical on fiscal issues—demanding an immediate balanced budget, for example—despite Grayson’s warnings that Kentuckians will lose all their federal goodies with a guy like Paul representing them in the Senate.
You can see why the media will treat Rand Paul as an icon of the political times between now and November—and beyond that, if he wins (he has quite a lead in general election polls). But even more importantly: Beyond the short-term buzz of 2010, Rand Paul’s victory illustrates some deeper truths about latter-day conservatism and the Republican Party.
For one thing, Rand Paul didn’t draw on help from independent voters to execute his conquest of Grayson and McConnell. The primary that Paul just won was closed, and Kentucky also cut off changes in party registration for this primary back in December. So, if Paul’s victory represents a humiliating defeat for the Republican establishment, it was a defeat inflicted by Republicans themselves, not by the traditional independents who back “insurgents” like Ross Perot.
Furthermore, there’s evidence that Paul’s victory was driven by a trend that’s been going on in the GOP for decades, long before it occurred to anyone to brandish tea bags: the effort by “movement conservatives” to take over the GOP and root out heresy. Certainly, the endorsements that Paul won from Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint—and from Christian Right warhorse James Dobson, who originally endorsed Grayson—reinforce that impression. And check out this nugget from PPP’s pre-election survey of Kentucky Republicans:

A Paul victory will be a clear signal that Kentucky Republicans want the party to move further to the right. 32% of likely primary voters think the party is too liberal and Paul has a 71-21 lead with them that accounts for almost his entire polling lead.

This sort of finding raises the broader question of whether the Tea Party movement, for all its professions of populism and independence, is in many respects just a radicalized segment of the conservative GOP base (see John Judis’s new TNR piece for a learned discussion of that proposition). But whatever the “story” of conservatism turns out to be in retrospect, Rand Paul is likely to figure prominently, and colorfully, in that tale.

The entire Republican strategy of the last year has been based on inflaming the passions and mobilizing the energy of the base and yet, as E.J. Dionne noted this morning, “what we didn’t see is a huge Republican surge that the “enthusiasm gap” registered in many of the polls might have suggested.”
Let’s face it. If the demented hysterics of the last year have not succeeded in creating a mobilized, energized “new” conservative electorate rising up against Obama and the Dems, there is little reason to think that anything that will happen between now and November will suddenly do the trick.
The Republicans needed the electoral equivalent of the windmill scene in Frankenstein yesterday– and they didn’t get it. As Sherlock Homes would have put it, it was “the dog that did not bark”.

Thoughtful Republicans won’t find much to cheer in the results of Tuesday elections, while both moderate and progressive Democrats are hailing the results.
In the special election to fill the PA-12 congressional seat vacated by the death of Rep. John Murtha, Democrat Mark Critz, a Murtha aide, beat Republican Tim Burns, who Critz will oppose again for the November general election. With 70 percent of precincts counted in the potential bellwether election, Critz lead Burns by a margin of 53-45 percent, according to Paul Pierce’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article.
Democrats were encouraged by the victory in the swing district (2-1 Democratic registration edge, but a Cook PVI rating of R+1), as DNC Chairman Tim Kaine noted:

Tonight’s result demonstrates clearly that Democrats can compete and win in conservative districts, including ones like Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, which was won by John McCain in 2008…The Republican Party’s failure to take a seat that they themselves said was tailor-made for them to win is a significant blow and shows that while conventional wisdom holds that this will be a tough year for Democrats, the final chapter of this year’s elections is far from written.

Dr. Melanie Blumberg, a poly Sci professor at California University of Pennsylvania, quoted in Pierce’s article, added,

I think the GOP’s attempt to nationalize the election by all the references to (House Leader) Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama failed miserably. Critz read the district better, and he apparently knew their conservative leanings from working with Congressman Murtha

Former half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and House Minority Leader John Boehner, stumped for Burns, as did Sen. Scott Brown and former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Former President Clinton and Sen. Bob Casey campaigned for Critz, a “pro-life, pro-gun” Democrat, who made jobs his top policy priority. Critz’s win suggests that candidates who articulate a convincing vision for job-creation and economic recovery will have an edge with working class voters.
Joe Sestak’s decisive win (8 percent) over Arlen Specter is getting lots of national attention, and soon perhaps, contributions from Democrats who see him as a rising star. (For an interesting map depicting the geographic breadth of Sestak’s win, click here). Let it not be lost on Dems that his win was also an impressive demonstration of the power of media over Specter’s well-established ground game — Sestak’s uptick in the polls tracked the emergence of his sharply-focused attack ads. In a tough economy, it appears that well-done attack ads have more resonance than the warm and fuzzy ‘I love my family and my country’ ads of more prosperous times.
Perhaps one lesson of the May 18 elections is that making primary endorsements is not such a good idea for a sitting president, who after all, is the leader of his party. I understand the argument for rewarding a Senator who made an important party switch — to show others who may be considering a switch that they won’t be left out on a limb. Obama reportedly backed off some as more recent polls showed Sestak gaining. Primary neutrality may give the President more leverage as a unifying force in the party and in campaigning for the primary victor in the general election, especially when the winner may not have been his first choice.
Sestak, a retired rear admiral with 31 years of naval service, is a mediagenic candidate of considerable promise, a rust-belt progressive with strong national security cred. Dems, including Obama, should work like hell to get him elected.
In the Arkansas Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who is supported by many progressive Dems, forced Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a run-off. Democratic voters cast more than twice the number of Republican ballots in the Arkansas Senate primaries, and both Lincoln and Halter out-polled Republican primary winner Boozeman. The so called ‘enthusiasm’ gap favoring Republicans did not materialize in the May 18 elections.
Even in KY, Dem Senate candidates Jack Conway and Daniel Mongiardo both received more votes in the Democratic primary (226,773 and 221,269 respectively) than did MSM and tea party darling Rand Paul in the GOP primary (206,159). Nearly half a million Kentuckians voted for Democratic U.S. Senate candidates, compared with less than 350 thousand who voted for Republicans.

From time to time TDS publishes “strategy white papers” that provide an in-depth analysis of major strategic issues facing the Democratic Party and its leaders. Today we are publishing a new strategy white paper by Andrew Levison, whose study of white-working-class voters dates back all the way to the 1970s.
Levison’s study begins by isolating non-college-educated white voters who are not attracted to the Tea Party Movement, but who are rapidly trending Republican, as an important strategic target for Democrats in 2010 and particularly in 2012. He then examines the often-heard proposition that a strong anti-corporate “populist” message is the key to attracting these voters, and finds it lacking in terms of the strong anti-government and anti-politics sentiments that have become an entrenched factor in the world views of many non-college educated voters in recent years. He instead suggests a comprehensive message of “government reform” that addresses the legitimate and perceived concerns of those white working class voters who are still open to persuasion, and that contextualizes progressive policy proposals in a way that makes them far more acceptable to skeptics of government and politics.
Levison’s paper, which draws on the extensive academic literature on the white working class, along with public opinion research, communications theory and sociological findings, provides, we believe, something of a landmark on a subject of perennial interest to progressives, and of considerable urgency given today’s political landscape. It also constitutes a good antidote to oversimplified media discussions of the Tea Party Movement and of “populism,” by looking at what non-college-educated voters actually think and how they process information on politics and government. It is well worth the time it takes to read, digest, and we hope, discuss with others.

The headline at Politico, under a banner that says “Turbulent Tuesday,” kinda says it all: “Sex, lies and primaries: Oh my!”
The “primaries” part of today’s political news was expected, of course, and if you’re behind the curve on those, you can read my pithy toughts here and here and here. (You should also check out J.P. Green’s item on the special House election in Pennsylvania). The only thing I have to add is that turnout in Pennsylvania and Kentucky seems to be light; the former is probably bad news for Arlen Specter.
The “sex” part of the day’s festivities involves Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, a long-time “family values” conservative Republican who announced he was resigning his seat after his chief of staff confronted him with anonymous tips that he was having an affair with a part-time staffer. The staffer in question, who, like Souder, was married to someone else, was originally hired in 2004 to co-host a Souder radio show on a Christian station back home in Indiana. Souder did say the affair with the woman was “mutual,” which is apparently his way of saying “consensual.” His decision to resign rather than simply retiring at the end of the year was probably motivated by a desire to avoid an ethics investigation by the House, since having sex with House employees is very much against the rules.
As you might recall, Souder, a class of 1994 veteran, narrowly won renomination two weeks ago after fending off a challenge from a wealthy car dealer. Now Souder has plunged Hoosier Republicans into a complex scenario where they will have to hold a special election and also select a nominee for November. There’s some talk already that unsuccessful Senate candidate and hard-core-conservative favorite Marlin Stutzman could get one or the other nod.
Okay, that’s today’s sex news; on the “lies” front, Connecticut was roiled today by a New York Times story indicating that Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the odds-on favorite to succeed Chris Dodd in the Senate, has on at least a couple of occasions suggested erroneously that he fought in Vietnam (he actually served stateside in the Marine Reserves during the Vietnam War, after receiving a series of deferments). Blumenthal held a press conference today, and surrounded by veterans’ representatives, defiantly said he hadn’t done anything wrong beyond “misspeaking on occasion,” and pointedly did not indicate any intention rethinking of his Senate bid. The DSCC announced it was standing by its candidate.
Connecticut Democrats, as it happens, are holding their nominating convention this weekend. Thus they will have a few days to assess the damage and decide whether they want to go ahead with Blumenthal or find another candidate from their deep bench in the state.
Yeah, it’s been a rather turbulent day!

Tonight political junkies will be closely monitoring the Sestak-Specter race in PA’s Democratic primary, by all accounts a close one, made more interesting by the rise of Sestak, a favorite of many progressive Dems. The added complexity of Specter’s party-switching, along with rain in Philly, however, make it problematic to divine a broad trend with November implications. Instead, pundits are calling the PA-12 congressional race the more interesting bellwether, pitting Democrat Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns in a close contest for the late John Murtha’s congressional seat.
PA-12 is a predominantly white working class district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R +1, the only congressional district in the nation that voted for Dem presidential candidate John Kerry in ’04 and GOP nominee John McCain in ’08. It’s being called a must-win for the Republicans, but Democrat Critz is running a good campaign — a Talking Points Memo Poll Average has Burns at 43.0 percent compared with 42.4 percent for Critz.
As Christina Bellantoni reports at TPM,

If Democrats keep that seat in a battleground district, they think that bodes well for this fall…”If the bottom were really falling out the GOP should be walking away with this race,” a Democrat close to the White House told me. Given the district demographics, the tough year for the majority party and the president’s diminished approval ratings, Republicans have a great chance at a pickup, the source said. “Even if it’s close it’s a good sign for us.”

Bellantoni also quotes former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), “They should win this election today…If the Republicans don’t win this I think they have to look mechanically at what they’re doing.”
Critz is getting lots of love from Democratic leaders, including Bill Clinton, who campaigned for Critz. The DCCC reports that Critz is being outspent by Burns more than 2-1, but the Democrat is still hanging tough. If Critz wins, or even loses by a close margin, it will be a good sign that, contrary to GOP spin, the white working class of 2010 is not jerking its knees for Republicans just yet.