Thread: Few Want Members of Congress Re-Elected, Poll Finds

Tuesday primaries: four crucial questions
By Linda Feldmann Mon May 17, 2:59 pm ET

Washington – Both Republican and Democratic establishment prestige is on the line Tuesday, as voters go to the polls in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Arkansas.

Here are four things to contemplate as the candidates make their final pitches Monday:

1. What will the race to fill Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s House seat in Pennsylvania tell us about November?

When Congressman Murtha passed away in February after 35 years in the House, conventional wisdom held that the Democrats would have a hard time holding onto this conservative-leaning district. But Democrat Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns are neck and neck, as Mr. Critz has turned his time as a Murtha aide into a plus – ironic, given all the anti-Washington feeling out there. But Critz’s time as Murtha’s economic development director allows him to channel part of why Murtha was so beloved in his district: He knew how to bring federal money home.

Critz also gains from the competitive Senate primary race, which will turn out Democratic voters. (The Republican primary is not competitive.)

The stakes could not be higher for each party. If Mr. Burns wins – and the Republican wins in Hawaii’s special House race on May 22, as expected – the GOP can credibly claim momentum toward November and possible takeover of the House. If Critz wins, that assumption goes out the window, giving Democrats a boost of confidence and greater hope of keeping their House majority.

2. What will undecided voters do in Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary?

With 16 percent undecided and 25 percent of the decideds saying they could change their mind, according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll, the race between Sen. Arlen Specter (41 percent) and Rep. Joe Sestak (42 percent) is too close to call.

Turnout will be critical. For Senator Specter, the ideal scenario is high turnout in Philadelphia and low turnout statewide. Analysts assume Specter will do better among black voters, who are concentrated in Philadelphia – Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s home base. (Governor Rendell and President Obama are firmly behind Specter.) Statewide, though, low turnout means undecided and marginal voters are staying home.

Typically, voters who are still undecided this late in a campaign go against the incumbent.

3. Should top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell take it personally that his chosen candidate is likely to lose the Kentucky GOP Senate primary?

The polls show political novice – and “tea party” movement favorite – Rand Paul is ahead of state Secretary of State Trey Grayson, Senator McConnell’s recruit, by double digits. The only suspense, at this point, is which Democrat Mr. Paul will face in November, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo or state Attorney General Jack Conway.

There’s no doubt the expected voter rejection of Mr. Grayson is an embarrassment for McConnell, but does it portend problems for McConnell’s future in Kentucky? Probably not. By the time he’s up for reelection again, in 2014, the 2010 elections will be a distant memory.

But just to be sure, McConnell compared himself to President Obama on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. The current situation “reminds me of when the president went into Massachusetts, a state he carried by 26 points, and tried to elect the candidate running against Scott Brown,” McConnell said. “I don’t think anybody seriously thinks the president won’t carry Massachusetts next time.”

The situations aren’t exactly parallel, of course. But if nothing else, this cycle may end up proving that big-name endorsements are next to meaningless.

4. If Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) of Arkansas survives her primary battle, does she go into the general election battle-tested or battle-weary?

Probably the latter, given that she may not get the requisite majority of votes on Tuesday in her primary with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. If she doesn’t, she will face a runoff on June 8.

Lieutenant Governor Halter, who is challenging Senator Lincoln from the left, has helped cement Lincoln’s image as a centrist for the general election, if she gets there. But no incumbent wants to face a primary, which siphons money and energy away from what is expected to be an uphill battle in the general.

The front-runner in the eight-candidate Republican primary is Rep. John Boozman. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls shows Congressman Boozman beating Lincoln by 20 points.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100517...VzZGF5cHJpbWE-

Primaries test incumbents' durability, tea party
By David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent 4 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Democrats Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas struggled uncertainly for nomination to new Senate terms Tuesday and tea party activists clashed with the Republican hierarchy in Kentucky in primaries testing anti-establishment anger in both political parties.

In a fourth race with national implications, Republican Tim Burns and Democrat Mark Critz vied to fill out the final few months in the term of the late Rep. John Murtha in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Each political party invested some $1 million to prevail for that House seat and said the race to succeed the longtime Democratic lawmaker was something of a bellwether for the fall.

Rounding out the busiest night of the primary season to date, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in Oregon faced little opposition in his campaign for nomination to a third full term.

Voters in Pennsylvania and Oregon also selected gubernatorial candidates.

The far-flung races took place a little less than five months before midterm elections in which Republicans will challenge Democrats for control of both houses of Congress. President Barack Obama backed incumbents in his party's races, but despite the stakes for his legislative agenda the White House insisted he was not following the results very closely.

Whatever the fate of the parties, public opinion polls — and the defeat of two veteran lawmakers in earlier contests — already had turned the campaign into a year of living dangerously for incumbents.

High unemployment, an economy just now emerging from the worst recession in generations and Congress' decision to bail out Wall Street giants in 2008 all added to voters' unease, polls said.

Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, a conservative judged not sufficiently so by tea party activists and other critics, was denied a spot on the primary ballot earlier this month in his state. He has flirted with running as a write-in but has not yet announced any plans.

In West Virginia, Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan fell in a primary to an opponent who highlighted ethics issues.

Tuesday's Kentucky primary pitted Rand Paul, a political novice who generated tea party support, against Secretary of State Trey Grayson, recruited by the state's senior senator, U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin backed Paul, as did Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolinian who has waded into several primaries in hopes of pushing his party to the right.

In Kentucky's Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and Attorney General Jack Conway collided for a spot on the ballot in the fall.

Specter dueled with Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, an 80-year-old party-switching veteran against a younger opponent in a frequent swing state in national campaigns.

Specter sought his sixth term, and first in his new party. Sestak tagged him as an opportunist, airing an ad that showed Specter saying he had abandoned the Republican Party so he could win re-election.

"Politicians are like diapers. They both should be changed regularly," Marc Coleman 41, of Philadelphia, said as he cast his vote.

But across the state in Pittsburgh, Stephen Little, 48, said he sided with the incumbent. "He's been there so long, he's familiar with all the areas and information," he said.

Former Rep. Pat Toomey had little opposition in his bid for the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania.

In Arkansas, Lincoln's primary foe was Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a race that took on trappings of a clash of outside interests. Records on file with the Federal Election Commission showed outside groups had spent nearly $10 million to sway the outcome.

Lincoln positioned herself as an independent-minded Democrat not beholden to her party. Halter's campaign was backed by labor unions unhappy with Lincoln's opposition to a government option under health care, legislation making it easier for unions to organize and trade legislation. Little Rock businessman D.C. Morrison also ran.

Among Republicans, Rep. John Boozman took on eight lesser-known rivals for party nomination to the Senate.

Arkansas state law provides for a primary runoff on June 8 if no one achieves a majority.

In Oregon, Republicans chose among seven contenders for the nomination to oppose Wyden.

Also in Oregon, former Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber campaigned for his party's nomination for a return to office, and nine Republicans competed for the right to run against him.

In Pennsylvania's gubernatorial primary, four Democrats and two Republicans vied for spots on the November ballot.

As if primaries weren't enough, both parties had other concerns.

Rep. Mark Souder, a conservative Republican from Indiana, abruptly announced he would resign on Friday, admitting he had had an affair with a woman on his congressional payroll. Democrats said his resignation would make the seat competitive in the fall.

And Democrat Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general running for the Senate, disputed a newspaper report that he once lied about his Vietnam record. Republicans focused on the report, hoping it would increase their chances of winning the seat.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_primar...NsawNwcmludA--

Obama endorsements don't seem to help Democrats
By Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer Wed May 19, 8:39 am ET

WASHINGTON – Voters rejected one of President Barack Obama's hand-picked candidates and forced another into a runoff, the latest sign that his political capital is slipping beneath a wave of anti-establishment anger.

Sen. Arlen Specter became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president's active involvement, raising doubts about Obama's ability to help fellow Democrats in this November's elections.

The first three candidates fell to Republicans. But Specter's loss Tuesday to Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania's Democratic senatorial primary cast doubts on Obama's influence and popularity even within his own party — and in a battleground state, no less.

Of course, it's possible that Democrats will fare better than expected this fall. And there's only so much that any president can do to help other candidates, especially in a non-presidential election year.

Still, Obama's poor record thus far could hurt his legislative agenda if Democratic lawmakers decide they need some distance from him as they seek re-election in what is shaping up as a pro-Republican year. Conversely, it might embolden Republican lawmakers and candidates who oppose him.

"We're licking our chops at running against President Obama," said Rand Paul, tea party candidate and victor in Kentucky's Republican primary for retiring GOP Sen. Jim Bunning's seat. Paul told CNN on Wednesday he'd relish Obama's campaigning on behalf of Democrat Jack Conway. Obama's agenda, Paul said, is "so far to the left, he's not popular in Kentucky."

Obama's track record also raises the question of whether he may be hurting candidates he supports by motivating his foes — such as tea party supporters — to vote. Though this month's AP-GfK Poll shows Americans split about evenly over how he's handling his job, those strongly disapproving outnumber people who strongly back him by 33 percent to 22 percent — not an enviable position for the president's party.

Sestak's victory over Specter is especially embarrassing, because he won by portraying himself and his supporters as being more faithful to the Democratic Party than were Specter and his backers — who included the president, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and other high-ranking party officials.

Creating another bruise for Obama and the Democratic establishment Tuesday, Sen. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff in Arkansas' Democratic senatorial primary. Obama supports her bid for a third term, but he is not as closely associated with her campaign as he was with Specter's.

In previous months, Obama's endorsements and campaign appearances weren't enough to save then-Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election bid in New Jersey, Creigh Deeds' run for governor in Virginia or Martha Coakley's campaign in Massachusetts to keep the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in Democratic hands.

In fairness, Deeds was an underdog from the start, and Corzine brought many problems on himself. But the Coakley loss to Republican Scott Brown was excruciating. She once was considered a shoo-in, and her defeat restored the Republicans' ability to block Democratic bills with Senate filibusters.

Unlike the Corzine, Deeds and Coakley races, Obama made no late-campaign appearances for Specter. But it will be hard for the president to distance himself from Specter's career-ending loss.

Obama campaigned for Specter last September in Philadelphia, where he said, "I love Arlen Specter." Specter used the clip in recent TV ads. Obama also e-mailed his supporters on Specter's behalf, and he was the first person Specter thanked in his concession speech.

Vice President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native, made several appearances for Specter. Last week he told a Pittsburgh radio station, "Arlen is the Democratic candidate."

Moreover, Obama was central to an all-important deal with Specter that struck some Democratic voters as opportunistic at best.

Specter had been a Republican senator for 28 years, opposing countless Democratic bills and appointees even if he showed more independence than most lawmakers. Thirteen months ago, however, he concluded he could not win the GOP nomination for a sixth term against conservative Pat Toomey. He and top Democrats struck a deal.

Specter would become a Democrat, giving the party the crucial 60th Senate vote it needed to overcome Republican filibusters, which were frustrating the administration. In exchange, Obama, Biden, Rendell and the entire Democratic hierarchy agreed to support Specter's 2010 re-election, including efforts to clear his way to the party's nomination.

The losers in the deal were any longtime Democrats who aspired to the U.S. Senate. They essentially were told to step aside for an 80-year-old longtime Republican. Pennsylvania's Democratic voters were asked to concur.

Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral first elected to the House in 2006, refused to go along. He plugged away without help from the state or national party. A few weeks ago he trailed Specter by about 20 percentage points in polls of likely Democratic voters.

But Sestak caught fire in the closing days, partly through a TV ad showing Specter campaigning enthusiastically with then-President George W. Bush, who remains deeply unpopular with many Democratic primary voters.

In the past few weeks, the White House has played down Obama's role in the Tuesday primaries, and he spent Election Day in Ohio talking about the economy. "At some point, you feel like we've done what we can do," senior White House adviser David Axelrod told The Associated Press in an interview. "We do have other stuff going on," he said.

Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist and vice president of the group Third Way, said he doubts that Democratic lawmakers will panic over Obama's inability to help Specter to a victory. "Presidents have coattails when their names are on the ballot," Bennett said, and that can't happen for Obama until 2012.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100519/...NsawNwcmludA--

No clear message out of Tuesday primaries
1 hr 45 mins ago

As strategists chew over the results of Tuesday's primaries and special elections, remember that old adage: All politics is local.

Sure, plenty of themes and storylines emerged Tuesday — among them the anti-incumbent, anti-establishment wave that has Congress members scared to death about November re-election prospects.

But that's not the only way to interpret Tuesday's results. For one thing, the overall vote didn't seem to play out as a referendum on President Obama, as Republicans had hoped. More than anything, this primary season's "Super Tuesday" came down to how voters felt about their own slate of candidates and local concerns.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic voters in the Senate primary rejected incumbent Arlen Specter, a 30-year veteran of the chamber, in favor of Rep. Joe Sestak, who bucked the White House and state Democratic establishment to seek his party's nomination. Yes, it was an insider-vs.-outsider race, and yes, the White House should be a little concerned that Obama's high-profile endorsement of Specter didn't help. But those factors seem to have been eclipsed by Specter's own problems with Democratic voters in the state. They couldn't get past Specter's Republican-until-last-year profile — a detail that Sestak hammered home in the final days of the campaign with an ad reminding voters of Specter's ties to GOP figures like George W. Bush, Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin.

Still, Democrats would be foolish to ignore the state's signs of voter discontent with the status quo. One big reason Sestak won last night was that he was able to capture western Pennsylvania, home to conservative Democrats — a swing voting bloc that Specter used to count on as a Republican during general elections. The fact that Specter couldn't lock in his traditional supporters should be a red flag for many incumbent candidates.

Also in Pennsylvania, Democrats will no doubt find some hopeful signs in the results from the special election in the Republican-leaning 12th Congressional District, where the party was able to maintain control of the House seat left open by Jack Murtha's death. The Democrat, Mark Critz, easily beat the Republican in a race that had been projected to go to the GOP. It's a story the party will no doubt use to push back projections that Republicans will make huge gains this November.

But in truth, the victory is a mixed one for Democrats: Even though Critz was a longtime Murtha staffer, he ran to the right in the race. In a recent ad, he trashed Obama's health care plan, saying that he would have voted against the measure had he been a sitting lawmaker. That message resonated strongly in a district that was one of the few in Pennsylvania to vote solidly for John McCain in 2008.

In Louisiana, embattled Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a June 8 primary runoff with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who has the backing several key unions and liberal groups, including the AFL-CIO. As in Pennsylvania, this race is less about Obama — he barely even came up in the race — than about local Democrats' disenchantment with Lincoln's centrist voting record.

Yet the biggest story of the night — and perhaps a good sign for Lincoln — was the surprisingly strong showing for a third Democrat in the primary race, D.C. Morrison, who ran to the right of Lincoln and attracted 13 percent of the vote. (Lincoln got 44 percent, Halter 43 percent.) Lincoln has a better chance of attracting Morrison's voters than Halter (that is, if they turn out at all).

Perhaps the only race in the country where national issues seemed to trump local sentiment was Kentucky's Republican Senate primary. Self-described tea party candidate Rand Paul trounced Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who was endorsed by the state GOP establishment, 59 percent to 35 percent. Republicans quickly held up Paul's victory as a hopeful sign for the GOP in November, but during the campaign Paul trashed Republicans as much as he did Democrats — and he reminded voters of that on Tuesday night. "It cannot be overstated that people want something new," Paul said. "They don't want the same old, same old politicians, and I think they think the system is broken and needs new blood."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/201005...NsawNwcmludA--

FBI details surge in death threats against lawmakers
Erika Lovley Tue May 25, 5:43 am ET

"I voted for you,” the caller said in a voice mail to Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler’s district office. “If you vote for that stimulus package, I’m gonna kill you. Simple as that.”

The FBI says the caller was a 70-year-old resident of Shuler’s North Carolina district with a history of mental illness and a cache of guns. In the weeks before calling Shuler’s office, the FBI says, the caller beat and choked his wife. She told the FBI that she’d tried to clear her home of guns — and that she went to bed at night with a can of mace tucked under her pillow.

When agents showed up at the man’s door, they asked him why he’d threatened to kill Shuler. “I was trying to work the political scene,” he said.

The threat against Shuler is one of several detailed in 2009 FBI documents provided to POLITICO pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) were threatened with assassination. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas) were threatened with bodily harm. Someone told Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) that her throat would be cut. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) was told someone would physically “f—- her up” if she held a town hall meeting in her district, according to the FBI files.

There may have been more threats — the FBI won’t release information on investigations that are still open — and there will likely be more this year; Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer says threats against members of Congress were up 300 percent in the first few months of 2010.

FBI agents arrested the North Carolina man who threatened Shuler, and prosecutors charged him with threatening to kill a federal official — a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Court records show that the case was dropped after he was found incompetent to stand trial.

Shuler says he was shaken — and that he has taken precautions to protect himself and his family. Family members have altered their daily routines to be more security conscious, and Shuler said that he and his wife have obtained concealed-weapons permits. “You get a threat like that, and you start to rethink your priorities,” Shuler said.

Though each threat case is different, the FBI documents reveal some common characteristics. The suspects are mostly men who own guns, and several had been treated for mental illness. Most of the suspects had just undergone some kind of major life stress, such as illness or the loss of a job.

In February 2009, a man left voice mail messages for Stabenow in several of her Michigan offices. “We’re gonna [expletive] get you,” he said in one message. “We’re gonna get you with a lot of [expletive] bolt action. Like we did RFK; like we did MLK. We know who you are. We’ll get you.”

FBI agents tracked the calls to a 54-year-old Texas man who lived alone — and who at one time had owned a 20-gun arsenal of handguns, shotguns and rifles. According to the documents, he told officers that he was “really, really drunk” when he made the calls. He said he was just “venting” — taking out his frustrations after hearing a discussion of the Fairness Doctrine and becoming concerned that the government would attempt to abolish the radio shows of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

In testimony submitted to Congress, Capitol Police officials have said that the threats against lawmakers have caused them to dramatically increase their security efforts. Police who work on protective details say demands on their time have skyrocketed, and the department has requested a 54 percent increase — of $2.7 million — to fund travel for its dignitary protection officers in fiscal year 2011.

In fiscal year 2009, dignitary protection was provided at 139 congressional events, a nearly 100 percent increase over 2008. Capitol Police also moved to provide “a more robust role” to town hall meetings, including working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies.

Capitol Police made 3,626 mountain bike patrols around House and Senate office buildings, up from 3,500 from fiscal year 2008. They responded to 142 suspicious packages in 2009, compared with only 34 in 2008, and conducted 1,808 bomb sweeps, compared with 970 the year before.

The Hazardous Materials Response Team investigated an average of 38 suspicious package calls per quarter last year, compared with 32 per quarter in 2008. The team conducted 967 sweeps per quarter to ensure the security of areas where congressional meetings and sessions were being held — up from 142 each quarter in 2008. The department also dealt with 13 disturbances or demonstrations, five more than during the previous year. “When an incident like the one in Times Square happens, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” said Gainer, who recently attended a nationwide sergeant at arms meeting at which state officials were urged to put plans in place to accommodate congressional town hall meetings this summer.

“We have about 12 open cases at any given time, but most of those are relatively low threat, meaning there’s no specificity to them,” Gainer said. “But if there’s a serious threat, we’re going to have a pretty stern response.”

Law enforcement responded immediately when Ryan was threatened back home in Wisconsin. The lawmaker was out walking with his daughter when a black sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside them. “You’ve got a bull’s-eye on your head,” the driver allegedly told Ryan. “You’re gonna die, motherf---er.”

Local police records show that the driver believed Ryan had “blood on his hands” for supporting the war in Iraq. He told police that he was on disability for arthritis and that he felt “frustrated” that he could no longer support his family, the documents show.

“Congressman Ryan told me that although they receive threats quite often, this one was more specific and directed,” a Janesville police detective wrote in his report.

The man was arrested for disorderly conduct, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute him after a search of his home revealed no weapons, according to FBI documents.

Last September, the documents show that a veteran in a counseling session said he wanted to “kill everyone who does not help me” — and that he included in the list Cornyn, Rodriguez and first lady Michelle Obama. When police checked on the man, they found that he was frustrated that those individuals hadn’t helped him with a retirement claim process through the Office of Policy and Management.

According to the documents, he admitted to police that he was taking “too many medications to list” for mental health problems that included depression, anxiety and a sleep disorder. He was out of work and on disability. The man’s wife had hidden his collection of shotguns and handguns and wouldn’t let him drive the family car, fearing he would pay a visit to Rodriguez, according to FBI files. “Veteran verbalized not knowing what he would do other than something that would get him locked up,” the responding detective wrote. “That he would get a gun and shoot everyone involved.”

With the exception of Shuler, the lawmakers identified in the FBI reports declined to discuss the threats. Their offices said they wanted to move beyond the incidents and stay focused on their work. “We’re not going to be frightened. We’re just going to go on with our lives and keep doing our jobs. We don’t want to be defined by this,” a Lofgren staffer said. “They don’t control this. We do.”

But the threats clearly have an effect — if not on how members do their jobs, at least on how they live their lives. “The first time you get a death threat, it’s really, really alarming, not to mention they know where you live and can find your family,” Shuler said. “It is very difficult when you serve in public office.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/201...HNsawNwcmludA-


Not wanting them re-elected is one thing - threats are totally inappropriate.

Anti-incumbency takes down another congressman
By Phillip Rawls, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 54 mins ago

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The political shooting-star otherwise known as anti-incumbency fell on Alabama, taking down a first-term congressman who switched from Democrat to Republican just last December.

The hotly-contested health care overhaul was among the issues working against Rep. Parker Griffith, voted out by Republicans Tuesday in the 5th Congressional District in favor of Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks. With tea party support and the backing of local GOP leaders still bitter about losing to Griffith in 2008, Brooks won Tuesday's primary with slightly more than 50 percent of the vote in a three-candidate field.

Griffith's ouster came on a day in which Rep. Artur Davis lost his bid to become Alabama's first black governor in the state's Democratic primary and New Mexico's gubernatorial primary set up a general election to decide who becomes the state's first female governor.

Griffith's loss was the latest manifestation of an anti-establishment, anti-Washington, anti-incumbency fervor — a 2010 political phenomenom that has shaken the Democratic establishment and the Obama White House, and has also has caused angst in GOP leadership circles.

A rip tide of voter resentment already has cost veteran Sen. Arlen Specter, a converted Democrat, his seat in Pennsylvania, and has ousted incumbent Republican Sen. Robert Bennett in Utah. It forced incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas into a primary runoff and turned out 14-term Democratic Rep. Allan Mollohan of West Virginia. That same convulsive political atmosphere propelled tea party darling Rand Paul to the GOP senatorial nomination in Kentucky.

In the Alabama governor's race, Davis was overwhelmed by a white Democratic primary opponent who had garnered support from the state's four major black political groups. Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks won the Democratic primary with 62 percent of the vote to Davis's 38 percent, with 96 percent of the precincts reporting.

The state's traditional civil rights organizations backed Sparks after Davis voted against President Barack Obama's federal health care overhaul. But Davis, a Harvard lawyer who led Obama's campaign here in 2008, had endorsements from Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights pioneer from Alabama, and Mobile's first black mayor, Sam Jones.

Voter Ben Ray picked Sparks, who has taken positions popular with Democrats, calling for an expansion of gambling, including a lottery, and supporting the federal health care plan.

"I just like his position on the education lottery," Ray said. "I think we need that here."

The chairman of the black Alabama Democratic Conference, Joe Reed, said Davis was hurt by refusing to seek the endorsements of African-American groups and by voting against the federal health care plan.

Sparks said he went after every vote, and his call for an education lottery proved popular with primary voters. Davis conceded in Birmingham, where he said he would support Sparks in the general election.

Seven GOP candidates for governor were competing in their party's primary Tuesday, and the top vote-getters were expected to go to a runoff on July 13.

Meanwhile, four-term Alabama Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby easily beat his primary challenger, tea party activist N.C. "Clint" Moser.

Shelby was drawing more than 80 percent of the votes in the unofficial count Tuesday evening. Shelby, 76, is favored to beat Democratic nominee Bill Barnes, a Birmingham lawyer.

Turnout across Alabama was light to moderate.

In New Mexico, the state's governor's race will be the third woman against woman gubernatorial general election matchup in U.S. history.

Susana Martinez, the Dona Ana County district attorney, beat her four GOP opponents with 51 percent of the vote in unofficial returns and 95 percent of precincts reporting. Former state GOP chairman Allen Weh had 27 percent.

Martinez will face Democrat Diane Denish, who didn't have a primary opponent, in the general election.

The primary produced a political first for New Mexico because neither Democrats nor Republicans had ever selected a woman as their gubernatorial nominee.

The Republicans are hoping to win the governorship after eight years of Democratic control under Gov. Bill Richardson, who is term-limited and cannot seek re-election. Denish was Richardson's running mate in 2002 and 2006.

In Mississippi, no incumbents faced primary challenges.

Alan Nunnelee won the Republican nomination for a north Mississippi congressional seat. Unofficial results from the three-person GOP primary in the 1st District showed Nunnelee, a state senator from Tupelo, defeated former Eupora Mayor Henry Ross and Fox News analyst Angela McGlowan of Oxford.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100602/...NsawNwcmludA--

Democrats up for re-election this year are fully aware of President Obama’s campaign record, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Pennsylvania, where at least five Democrats have taken the “uh, I can’t make it because I gotta re-arrange my sock drawer” out in response to the invitation to Obama’s speech at Carnegie Mellon this afternoon: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_684062.html

Congressmen Jason Altmire and Tim Murphy have previous engagements. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and Rep. Mike Doyle are out of town on anniversary trips with their wives. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato will be campaigning in Philadelphia.

When President Obama and Sen. Arlen Specter land at Pittsburgh International Airport today, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl will receive them by himself.

The rest of the region’s top elected officials declined White House invitations to attend Obama’s speech at Carnegie Mellon University this afternoon, their offices said.

Even Obama’s teleprompter tried to bail but reconsidered after being reminded that it is under contract, and if it didn’t show up, Eric Holder threatened to prosecute TOTUS to the fullest extent of whatever applicable laws the AG hasn’t read yet.

The president is following through on a promise to Democrats that he made in March: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

At the same time, Obama intends to lobby wavering House Democrats to vote for a Senate version of the legislation and to support the subsequent reconciliation process, which Republicans have characterized as an unjustified use of majority power. Among the rewards Obama is ready to offer, White House officials said, are election-year visits to competitive congressional districts, where a presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds.

I guess hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds don’t matter if you think it’s being handed to you by the Grim Reaper.

In other news, President Obama is going to meet with Paul McCartney tonight http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6540213.shtml ( to see if the former Beatle has any suggestions about how to stop the oil leak in the gulf. 'Yellow Submarine' you know ... )

Perhaps the cruelest irony of the horrible Gulf oil spill is that Obama is finally able to live up to the hype and walk on water, but the reason might be his undoing.

Then again, maybe not. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...mas_incom.html

Update: Speaking of feeling lonely… http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...campaign-trail There’s somebody in Florida who could use a hug.

Oh wait, that was the problem in the first place. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/1..._n_332963.html

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Primaries from Calif. to SC measure voter anger
Michael R. Blood, Ap Political Writer – Sun Jun 6, 3:44 am ET

LOS ANGELES – How angry are Americans? People primed for change vote in 12 states Tuesday in contests that will decide the fate of two endangered Washington incumbents — a two-term senator in Arkansas and a six-term congressman in South Carolina — while setting the stage for some of the races that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill in the fall.

In an Arkansas runoff, Sen. Blanche Lincoln could fall to a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who says "the only way to change Washington is to change who we send there." South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis is trying to fend off primary challengers who have made the race a referendum on his 2008 vote to bail out up the nation's banking industry.

The political strength of the tea party movement faces tests in several states, particularly in Nevada, where three Republicans are in a bruising fight for the chance to take on Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, in November.

Republicans in California could send two political neophytes, wealthy former business executives Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, into races to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and challenge Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

In an election season overshadowed by the ailing economy and unhappiness with Washington, three longtime incumbents already have lost: Sens. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va. A party switcher new on the scene, Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, stumbled this past week as voters demanded ideological purity.

A Pew Research Center poll in April found that public confidence in government was at one of the lowest points in a half century. Bennett calls the political atmosphere toxic. Races on Tuesday will provide fresh evidence of how far people want to go to shake up statehouses and Washington.

"I've become frightened over what our government is doing," says Roxanne Blum, 57, a Republican from Pahrump, Nev. She's alarmed by the soaring debt and has seen firsthand, through her work in the mortgage industry, the damage caused by Nevada's highest-in-the country foreclosure rate.

Once excited by Reid's ascendancy in Washington leadership, she now sees him as out of touch with his economically troubled home state. "When he comes here, he does lip service," she says.

Earlier congressional contests have shown that incumbency can be a yoke and that voter discontent is running through both parties, even though the Democrats who control Congress have the most at risk in November. With President Barack Obama's popularity slipping, issues from the health care overhaul law to taxes are defining races.

Tea party-backed Mike Lee, one of two Republicans who advanced to a June 22 primary for Bennett's Utah seat, says there's "a widespread feeling the federal government is growing, taxing, spending and borrowing way too much."

In the Arkansas runoff, Lincoln is suffering blowback from the right and left for her health care votes. Unions backing her rival have spent more than $5 million to defeat her. In one ad, she acknowledges the frustration among voters: "I know you're angry at Washington."

The Republican race to succeed Schwarzenegger has been a display of extraordinary spending as well as a test of how far right the party wants to venture on issues such as illegal immigration in a traditionally Democratic-tilting state.

Republican billionaire Whitman, a former eBay chief executive, has invested more than $70 million of her own fortune in the race against state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, a wealthy former businessman who has put $24 million into his campaign. The all-but-certain Democratic nominee is Attorney General Jerry Brown, who was governor in the 1970s and 1980s.

Whitman and Poizner have challenged each other's conservative credentials in a torrent of negative ads. Poizner supports Arizona's tough illegal immigration law; Whitman does not. Poizner wants to cut off most state services to illegal immigrants and their children; Whitman would not end services for children.

In a year of tea party insurgency, "all of the Republican candidates in California have been pulled to the right," says political scientist Bruce Cain of the University of California, Berkeley. The question in November will be whether independents who cast decisive votes follow.

Fiorina, a former Hewlett Packard Co. chief executive who has Sarah Palin's endorsement, has a lead in polls over former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a tea party favorite. Boxer's campaign has depicted the Republicans as out of step with mainstream Californians.

Nevada Republicans appear ready to punish Gov. Jim Gibbons for his messy divorce, potentially making him the first sitting governor to lose a nominating contest in the state in 100 years. Gibbons was trailing former federal judge Brian Sandoval by more than 10 points in a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll released Saturday.

Reid knows he's in trouble. But big-name Republicans skipped the race and he has seen his chances lifted after a caustic Republican primary that could leave him facing tea party favorite Sharron Angle. She wants to abolish the federal income tax code, phase out Social Security for younger workers and eliminate the Education Department.

Angle says she's in the mainstream; Reid supporters depict her as out of step with most Nevadans.

In addition to the Inglis race, South Carolina Republicans chose from a field of four candidates hoping to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who was politically and personally damaged by an affair with an Argentine woman.

State Rep. Nikki Haley has the backing of the tea party and Palin in her bid to become the state's first female governor. In the past two weeks, two men have come forward to say they had trysts with her, which she denies, and the primary will tell whom voters believe.

In north Georgia, Tom Graves hopes his involvement with the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots will help him defeat Lee Hawkins, another conservative, in a runoff to fill a vacant House seat in a heavily Republican district.

Maine voters will choose nominees for governor in a wide-open race to replace Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who's completing his second four-year term. A seven-way Republican primary includes tea party favorite Paul LePage. Candidates have been talking about jobs and cutting government regulation.

Iowa has a three-way Republican primary for the right to oppose Democrat Chet Culver, considered one of the nation's most vulnerable governors.

Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia also hold primaries.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100606/...ltYXJpZXNmcm8-

Wherever you live, vote out the incumbents. Doesn't matter which party. We need representatives that want to represent the people, not those that want to dictate. They all need to quit running non-stop campaigns and do the job after getting elected. Congress and Senate are not courtrooms to judge peers but rather to compromise. I think they should make a priority of going over all the laws and doing away with those that are just silly! Vote them all out and maybe the newly elected will get it right.

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It's been particularly evident that the incumbent politicians on both sides of the aisle are in for a handful this November. In my opinion the population should get rid of as many of these self serving idiots as possible. Sure, we will probably get a number of experienced flops instead but how could the political situation get any worse?

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Hominy and Grits has it right. Don't cast ALL reps as poor - know what you are doing, how they have voted, etc. Vote for fiscal responsibility over Dem vs Rep. "There are both bad and good people in both parties. Research your picks and vote intelligently. And yes, sometimes it comes down to the lesser of two losers. Be an educated voter and be active at the polls by exercising your right to vote. And if you can do better, run for office. Don't complain without first knowing a bit about the evolution of the arguments in play at the local, state and federal levels."

Here is this person's comment once again. If you follow the blind advice to "remove them all", you will get rid of some very GOOD reps that deserve to remain in office. Just know your current reps' voting records before you vote them out!!!!! Otherwise, you are an ignorant voter and are running a HUGE risk of voting MORE idiots in!

Indiscriminate, ignorant voting will only hurt us. We have to go back to Reaganomics because it worked! Clinton did some right things economically, too. Let's go back to those policies!!! It was broken under Carter, got fixed under Reagan.

South Carolina Dems Stunned by Mystery Candidate
Mystery S.C. nominee has pending felony charge
1 hrs 35 mins ago

Alvin Greene has been on the phone all day. That's to be expected for the guy who just won South Carolina's Democratic Senate primary and is facing incumbent Republican Jim DeMint in November. But everyone calling Greene has just been trying to find out who the heck he is — and one thing reporters learned Tuesday is that a criminal complaint was sworn out against him last year for allegedly showing obscene photos to a South Carolina college student and suggesting they go to her dorm room.

Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed military veteran who lives with his parents, defeated Vic Rawl on Tuesday for the Democratic Senate nomination despite having run essentially no public campaign — no events, no signs, no debates, no website, no fundraising.

The result has baffled political observers, who had heavily favored Rawl — a former state legislator, attorney and prosecutor who had the edge inasmuch as he actually campaigned and tried to win. Many in South Carolina (which has grandly lived up to its reputation as a political circus this year) suspect that somewhere, a crafty GOP political operative is snickering.

As far as the local political press can discern, the only positive step Greene took toward campaigning was when he plunked down a $10,400 check in March to satisfy the state's filing fee and get on the ballot. He never registered a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission or filed a financial disclosure with the Senate Ethics Committee.

So why did he run, and how did he win? "I campaigned," Greene, who spoke rapidly and seemed distracted, told Yahoo! News in a brief interview. "It was a low-budget campaign. I funded it 100 percent out of my own pocket, and kept it simple — it was old-fashioned." Asked what, precisely, that campaign consisted of, and how much he spent on it, Greene demurred. "Not much. I had friends helping me."

He said he hasn't yet reached the $5,000 spending limit that triggers a requirement to file with the FEC, despite having spent that $10,400 filing fee (a pretty penny for someone with no job). Like any good politician, Greene tried to deflect questions about the particulars of his campaign to talk of "the issues."

"I graduated from the University of South Carolina," he said. "We have more unemployment than any other time in South Carolina history. Hold on, I have another beep."

Shortly after his Yahoo! News interview, the Associated Press reported that Greene was arrested in November on the obscene photo complaint. Charges are pending, and he hasn't entered a plea. One could, of course, note that such charges wouldn't necessarily hurt a candidate in a Palmetto state election season that's featured plenty of sensational sexual charges.

Greene's candidacy has raised suspicions that he may have been induced to run by Republican operatives in order to sow dissension in the Democratic ranks. It's not uncommon in South Carolina for Republicans to recruit African-American challengers to run against white frontrunners in Democratic primaries in the hope of drumming up racial tensions. (Greene is black.) The straw candidates aren't supposed to win — they're just supposed to create a racially divisive primary to damage the candidate's ability to put together a coalition in the general election.

It's nothing new to Nu Wexler, the former executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party. "In 2004, on the last day you could file to run in the primary, we were wrapping things up when an SUV with a Bush-Cheney sticker dropped off three black guys who came in to file to run in some local races, and they all paid the filing fee with sequentially numbered cashier's checks from a local credit union," he said. In 1990, famed South Carolina political consultant Rod Shealy was convicted of violating campaign laws after recruiting a black candidate to run in a GOP primary for lieutenant governor in the hope of drawing out racist voters — a maneuver he thought would bolster support for his candidate.

Greene denies that he's a plant. But even if he is, the lack of an actual campaign seems to indicate that whatever plan he might have been a part of was quickly abandoned. Wexler says there may never have even been much of a strategy: "You have consultants doing this kind of thing just because they get bored, and they want something to tell good stories about. It's almost like fraternity pranks."

Greene's success is a testament both to the lackluster quality of the campaign run by Rawl (who raised $186,000 and ran ads) and to the, um, peculiar voting habits of South Carolinians. State Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler speculated to AP that Greene won because his name came before Rawl's on the ballot. Wexler says Greene is a "big name in South Carolina."

We called the South Carolina Democratic Party to ask if it intends to support Greene's candidacy, but haven't heard back. It could attempt to challenge Greene's win by claiming that he didn't pay the filing fee out of his own pocket — which, if true, would be a federal crime. "It puts them in a tough position," Wexler said. "You can't exactly start challenging the filing fees of every candidate."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl2500

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