For those of us in the politics biz, last night was a long night, with returns trickling out over a eight hour period. Despite the best efforts of headline writers to impose some order on the ten primaries, one runoff, and one special election runoff, there was no overriding pattern or big theme to these elections: just a lot of individual contests whose importance we mostly won’t even know until November. I won’t try to cover everything that happened; you can consult news sources for detailed results. But there were some pretty interesting happenings.
The biggest surprise for the chattering classes (and I’ll plead innocence on this one, since I consistently labeled it as too close to call) was the survival of Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, whose dominant performance in Pulaski County (Little Rock), her opponent’s home base, was crucial. The heavy commitment of resources by the labor movement on behalf of Bill Halter will be second-guessed for quite some time. And once again, it’s been established that you don’t mess with Bill Clinton in his old stomping grounds.
Probably the second biggest story of the night was Nikki Haley, who came within an eyelash of winning the SC Republican gubernatorial nomination without a runoff. Congressman Gresham Barrett finished a distant second, and is already getting pressure to drop out save the GOP the trouble of a runoff. It’s clear in retrospect that the maelstrom of the last two weeks, in which Haley was hit with two separate poorly documented allegations of marital infidelity, gave her a significant sympathy vote and all but extinguished the ability of her opponents to get any kind of message out. Meanwhile, state rep. Vincent Sheheen scored an impressive majority win in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, and can now spend his time raising money and watching future developments, if any, in the Haley saga.
The third biggest story of the night was in Nevada, where the easy victory of Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle in the Republican Senate primary gave Harry Reid the matchup he wanted for November. Angle benefitted from the implosion of long-time front-runner Sue Lowden, and from national conservative support. Third-place finisher Danny Tarkanian faded in the clutch even more than Lowden.
Speaking of the Tea Folk, their movement had a very mixed evening. Establishment Republican candidates turned back Tea Party-affiliated challengers in Virginia and New Jersey. But in SC, congressman Bob Inglis, who made the mistake of voting for TARP, was knocked into a runoff by local DA Trey Gowdy, and will be the heavy underdog going forward.
One result with significant 2012 implications was in Iowa, where as expected, former Gov. Terry Branstad beat conservative firebrand Bob Vander Plaats for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. But given his many advantages in the race, Branstad’s 9-point margin of victory was underwhelming, and should warn potential presidential candidates that the social conservative forces represented by Vander Plaats could be more formidable than ever in the 2012 caucuses. Certainly Sarah Palin, whose late endorsement of Branstad enraged some of her Iowa fans, will need to do some repair work if she’s interested in entering the contest that will begin in Iowa.
And finally, in a result that got virtually no national attention but that could prove important down the road, California voters approved Proposition 14, which abolishes party primaries in favor of a “jungle primary” in which the top two finishers, regardless of political affiliation, meet in a runoff if no candidate wins 50%.

The high-profile primary elections went pretty much as expected, with the exception of the Lincoln-Halter race in Arkansas, which pundits are calling an upset for Sen. Lincoln, who won by 4 percent. The Arkansas race was certain to be a tough experience for many Democrats, regardless of who won. The way it worked out, progressive Dems got a double dose of the pain.
Not only were progressives hugely disappointed by Lt. Governor Halter’s loss — he was an impressive candidate, who many believed could be a rising star in the Democratic party and who had momentum in the polls. In addition, Lincoln’s victory was tainted by unprecedented union-bashing from a Democratic incumbent and her surrogates, including former President Clinton. Whether Lincoln could have won without it will remain a topic for debate. But, if she loses a close race in November because of weak union support, the folly of the strategy will become clear.
There is no doubt, however, about the wisdom of bringing in the Big Dog, whose popularity is squared in Arkansas. President Clinton, whose 8 years in the white house were characterized by peace and a healthy economy, is still Elvis in his home state. Credit Lincoln with good strategy in leveraging his popularity, especially in today’s troubled economic environment.
Whether or not the union-bashing helped Lincoln, there is some potential for long-term damage here, especially if other Democratic candidates embrace it. In the long run, the Democratic Party needs a strong union movement to build a real progressive majority. Victories won with union-bashing are ultimately divisive and may well end up serving GOP candidates, even in a state with relatively low union power, like Arkansas. Alternatively, if we can only win by disparaging an institution that is the first line of defense for working people in their quest for decent living standards, who the hell are we?
For unions, a couple of lessons of Lincoln’s win come into focus. 1. Be ready for union-bashing. There will likely be more of it in other races. 2. Develop stronger media resources — a national labor movement cable channel with local programming capability is long overdue. Regarding the latter, union GOTV efforts are still an invaluable asset for Dems in many races. But the labor movement urgently needs an energetic nation-wide educational campaign, utilizing more than bumper stickers. Unions must do a better job of educating Americans about all that organized labor has done to create the middle class. They must also adapt their organizing strategy to fit the changing work force so they can grow again. With such a twin-pronged strategy, the labor movement can begin to create a climate in which no smart Democrat would dare to win votes by trashing unions.
I have to agree with WaPo columnist Chris Cillizza’s assessment that, despite all of the jabber about “a strong anti-incumbent wind” blowing around the country, “Lincoln’s victory provides — yet more — evidence that candidates and campaigns matter.” I would also agree with Open Left‘s Chris Bowers that Lincoln’s strong position on Wall St. reform helped her.
But the salient lesson of Lincoln’s primary win for Democrats won’t become clear until November 2nd. She has to do what she can to rebuild bridges to Arkansas progressives, especially unions, which won’t be easy. Lincoln can’t afford to write off any pro-Democratic constituency.
Even more important is her campaign’s ability to attack Republican nominee John Boozman, who leads in polls at this point, and inculcate the meme that he is a rubber-stamp for corporate interests, who wants to repeal Social Security and a liability for Arkansas working people. This should be possible, given Boozman’s track record as a garden-variety Republican who routinely votes with his party (97 percent of the time in the current congress) in support of big business and the wealthy against the interests of the middle class.

In recent days an important discussion has emerged among progressives about the proper strategy for the progressive movement. As Bill Scher, the Online Campaign Manager of the Campaign for America’s Future described it:

“The progressive community is somewhat divided between the folks who think Obama is doing everything he can against a broken political system and the folks that think he’s not doing enough, and that we need an independent force to push him…Are we the wingman of the Obama Administration or an outside pressure force?”

This question was expected to generate a spirited debate among progressives at the America’s Future Now conference held in Washington this week but, interestingly, the anticipated conflict did not materialize. Instead, there was a widespread consensus that – regardless of their specific evaluation of Obama – progressives were agreed on the need to build an independent movement capable of both supporting or challenging the administration as any particular case required.
As AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka put it, progressives need to be a “troublesome ally” of Obama. Campaign for America’s future co-director Robert Borosage described it as being willing to go “off the reservation” and organize independently.
The general agreement on the urgent need to build a vastly strengthened, independent progressive movement –regardless of one’s precise view of the Obama administration – reflected an extremely wide general consensus among progressive bloggers, organizational leaders and grass-roots activists across the county. Even progressives who are very firm and enthusiastic supporters of Obama did not see support for an enhanced, independent progressive movement as representing a conflict with their generally positive assessment of the Administration.
Yet, although this support for an independent progressive movement would appear to represent a distancing of progressives from Obama, in two critical respects the movement remains excessively defined — and limited — by the way it relates to him and his administration. The progressive discussion is based on two underlying assumptions– both of which need to be re-examined:
The first assumption is that, in some sense, it is the weaknesses or failures of the Obama administration that have created the urgent need for progressives to build an independent progressive movement. In many commentaries a substantial list of disappointments or compromises by the Administration are offered as the primary evidence that an independent movement is necessary.
There are two problems with this way of framing the issue. First, taken to its logical conclusion, this kind of argument suggests that an independent progressive movement might in some circumstances actually be unnecessary – if Obama had just kept a sufficient number of his campaign promises, progressives would be able to wholeheartedly support him and an independent progressive movement would not be required. Second, it leads both Obama and progressives to become perceived and defined as failures – Obama for not living up to his campaign rhetoric and progressives for not being able to make him do so.
The second assumption is that the agenda of the progressive movement will continue to be defined primarily in relation to Obama’s political and legislative objectives. The progressive position will represent a challenge from the left, but it will still be framed as a response to the administration’s initiatives rather than presented on its own terms and in relation to its own long-range objectives.
This is too narrow an agenda for an independent mass movement – a social movement needs a set of objectives larger than the goals and initiatives of any single administration.
These two assumptions will impede and limit the effectiveness of the effort to build an independent progressive movement. They need to be reconsidered and revised.

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There is understandable excitement among Republican women this year because they have high-profile women candidates running for state-wide office in CA, NV and SC. Linda Feldman of The Christian Science Monitor even has a feature article entitled “Tuesday primaries: Year of the Republican woman dawning?,” and the hopes of GOP women are high that Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Sharon Angle and Nikki Haley will up the ante when all of the primary votes are counted today.
According to Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), however, the Republicans still have a ways to go before they can make a convincing case that the GOP is the party that speaks to the aspirations of American women. According to CAWP’s most recent tally, for example, here is a breakdown of women office-holders by party:

13 Democratic women U.S. senators, vs. 4 Republicans
56 Democratic women House of Reps. members, vs. 17 Republicans
3 Democratic women Governors, 3 Republican women Governors
4 Democratic women Attorneys General, vs. 0 Republican women A.G.’s
50 Democratic women holding statewide office in the U.S., vs. 21 Republican women
70.5 percent of women state senators are Democrats, vs. 27.2 percent Republicans
70.3 percent of women state legislators are Democrats, vs. 29.4 percent Republicans

It’s an interesting phenomenon. You would think some smart journalist would call out the Republicans and ask them to explain the gap between the two parties. For Dems, however, our goal should be to recruit and elect more women candidates until something resembling gender parity among Democratic office-holders is a reality.

This item is crossposted from The New Republic.
Political junkies rejoice! There are twelve states holding elections today, including ten primaries, one runoff, and one special-election runoff. Among these, the contests that have drawn most national attention are in California, South Carolina, Nevada, Iowa, and Arkansas. The following is an overview of why these primaries matter and what you should look for in the results.
California: Mega-Money Chases Micro-Voter Interest
The Governor’s Race
As I recently explained for TNR, citizens of the Golden State are in a very bad mood, even by the jaundiced national standards of Election 2010. But as much as Californians hate politicians right now, politicians are relentlessly pursuing them. By far the most aggressive of these, in terms of sheer dollars spent, are the two Republican gubernatorial candidates, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner. Together, they’ve already blown $110 million to win the honor of opposing the famously diffident Democrat Jerry Brown in November. If all you knew about Whitman and Poizner came from each of their attack ads, you’d think the former is a corrupt Goldman Sachs crony who lives for a chance to open the borders to unlimited immigration, while the latter is a baby-killing, tax-loving lefty whose major recent accomplishment was to buy a bunch of souped-up cars for state bureaucrats. Perhaps because she’s outspent Poizner about three to one, Whitman has had the better of this nuclear exchange, and polls show that she overcame a rough patch in May to regain an insurmountable lead going into today’s primary.
Whitman will now have to sort through the wreckage and regroup, in an attempt to pose as an eminently reasonable, middle-of-the-road businesswoman who just wants to straighten out the books in Sacramento. She’s already burned through nearly half of the $150 million of her personal fortune that she vowed to spend in order to obtain one of the worst jobs in America. If you tune in to her victory party tomorrow night, you may be deafened by the grinding of gears as she repositions her Death Star campaign for the general election.
The Senate Race
Whitman’s doppelganger, Carly Fiorina, another (female) corporate executive who parachuted into California Republican politics from a spot on John McCain’s presidential campaign, has smartly managed to position herself for a big statewide primary win tomorrow without spending more than a fraction of Whitman’s loot. Late in the race, Fiorina did scrounge up several million for a well-timed ad blitz that pushed her past the early frontrunner, cash-strapped former congressman Tom Campbell. But it was probably a combination of Campbell’s fatal social liberalism (he’s both pro-choice and pro-gay marriage) and the patent non-viability of teeth-grinding true conservative Chuck DeVore that truly pushed Fiorina to the cusp of the nomination. And while she is, by all accounts, a more personable campaigner than eMeg, she’s also saddled herself with positions on abortion (hard-line pro-life) and immigration (she supports the hated Arizona law) that will hurt her in a general-election contest with Barbara Boxer–who I’m guessing will manage to squeak past the original cranky blogger, Mickey Kaus (identified on the ballot in Spanish as a redactor de blogs), in the Democratic primary. Indeed, Boxer was up nine points over Fiorina in the latest PPIC poll, and six points in the USC/LA Times survey.
The Lieutenant Governor’s Race and Proposition 14
There are plenty of other fascinating contests on the California ballot tomorrow, the best of which will be a glamour match for the Democratic Lieutenant Governor’s nomination between San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, the favorite, and Los Angeles political heavyweight (and sister of the former LA mayor) Janice Hahn. There’s even a major ballot initiative worth watching: yet another effort to fix California’s polarization, via a switch to a “jungle primary” system that forces all candidates to run together, regardless of affiliation and face a runoff if no one wins a majority. The initiative seems to have become Arnold Schwarzenegger’s revenge on both major political parties–his PAC is the major financial force behind Proposition 14–and polls show it is likely to pass.

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On Tuesday, June 8, there will be ten states holding primaries, with a runoff in an eleventh, and a special election runoff in a twelfth. There will be lots to talk about tomorrow morning and night, but it’s worth noting today that several contests which earlier looked very close have now become laughers.
This is most obvious in California, where it appears that the once-torrid Republican gubernatorial and Senate primaries are turning into victory laps for (respectively) Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.
Whitman appears to have finally spent rival Steve Poizner into submission, and according to every recent poll, Poizner’s obsessive focus on immigration in the stretch drive hasn’t done him much good. Sorry if I seem to keep harping on this, but total spending in this race has gone well over $100 million. Meanwhile, Democrat Jerry Brown didn’t have to campaign to win the Democratic nomination, and has been able to sit back, raise money, and watch Whitman screw up her early “centrist” positioning.
Money was also a factor in Fiorina’s late surge into the lead in the Senate primary: she had enough to run TV ads, while onetime front-runner Tom Cambpell had to put everything into a too-late effort to convince Republicans he had a better chance of beating Barbara Boxer. But Fiorina also benefitted from a consolidation of conservative voters who didn’t want to see Campbell–who is both pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage–win.
Another barburner that seems to have fizzled out is the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary, which former Governor For Life (a joke: he only served for 16 years) Terry Branstand should win easily over arch-conservative Mike Huckabee surrogate Bob Vander Plaats, if the authoritative Des Moines Register poll is right. Sarah Palin’s late endorsement of Branstad was probably a reflection of that reality more than a contributor to it.
And finally, another race that seems to be generating a runaway winner is creating its very own kind of drama: the SC Republican gubernatorial contest, where Nikki Haley’s surge has continued despite, or perhaps partially because of, poorly documented allegations of marital infidelity against her. At this point, the big questions are whether (1) she can reach the 50% threshold necessary to win without a runoff, and (2) subsequent evidence of infidelity emerges that could, given her vow to give up her candidacy or even resign the governorship in this contingency, blow up her campaign, and the SC GOP, down the road.

Malia Lazu, Mel King Community Fellow at MIT, has a must-read quickie, entitled “Ten Things You Can Do to Win a Political Campaign” up at The Nation. King has some creative ideas and useful links, like in #4, for example:

Don’t blame the voters. Politics is the only industry that blames the consumer for not buying its product. Elections are a one-day sale; it’s your campaign’s job to get people excited enough to vote. The best way to do this is by studying candidates who understand how to build not just campaigns but movements. Check out how Keith Ellison does it in Minnesota and how Chellie Pingree does it in Maine.

Any one of King’s ten tips could pay off in a close election, and progressive campaigns should give it a cip.

In a move that startled Iowa Republicans and may have even come as a surprise to its beneficiary, Sarah Palin endorsed Terry Branstad, the ultimate Establishment Republican, for governor in next Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary.
Palin’s endorsement of the former four-term governor came as a rude shock to supporters of his main rival, social conservative ultra Bob Vander Plaats, who recently harvested an endorsement from James Dobson, and had labored hard to frame the primary as a choice between a “true conservative” and a quasi-RINO.
Many observers immediately framed Palin’s surprise gambit as an insult to the Tea Party Movement, much like her endorsements of Carly Fiorina in California and Vaughan Ward in Idaho.
But I’m one who has always maintained that Palin’s true base (long before there was any such thing as a Tea Party Movement) is social conservatives focused on abortion and gay marriage, and that’s what makes the Branstand endorsement surprising. The religious right in Iowa deeply mistrusts Branstad for choosing a pro-choice Lieutenant Governor (Joy Corning, who served in Branstad’s third and fourth terms), for appointing two of the state Supreme Court judges who legalized same-sex marriage last year, and in general, for not seeming to care about their priorities. One major social conservative group, the Iowa Family PAC, has gone so far as to say it would refuse to support Branstad if he won the Republican nomination.
So what’s Palin up to, particularly if, as it appears, Branstad wasn’t exactly hanging around Wasilla begging for her support?
Nobody knows for sure, but I think Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic‘s entirely logical in guessing that Palin thinks Branstad’s going to win anyway, and would like to have a special friend in Des Moines in case she does decide to run for president in 2012. I might add that Vander Plaats is very closely associated with Mike Huckabee, Palin’s potential rival for the hard-core conservative vote. Moreover, Branstad’s prior Big Dog Republican backer is Mitt Romney, and Palin would probably have some grounds for asking Branstad to stay neutral if both of them are running around Iowa next year.
Never a dull moment for Palin watchers, eh?