And They’re Off! General Election 2010 Gets Underway

Well, this week another big set of primary elections was settled.  Other than a few remaining primaries and run-off elections, the field for the 2010 midterm elections is now set.  Sorry this post took so long to come out; there are so many different narratives that emerged on Tuesday, both new and ones we’ve seen earlier this year, that it is tough to generalize the results.  The midterm elections and the results of these primaries are a topic I write about fairly often.  While health care reform, financial regulation, global warming legislation, and the other major initiatives Congress takes up affect all of us, the midterm elections have the potential to have far-reaching implications.

Certainly, they will determine whether we get the same level of partisan deadlock as we’ve had- or worse -in the next Congress, thus determining how difficult the fights on climate change legislation, further confirmations, and other measures Congress may take on will be.  But that’s just Congress; in November, several Governorships and state legislatures are up for grabs.   The primaries last night underscore the often-unpredictable nature of public opinion, and political campaigns in general.  Overall, there was one narrative that seemed to run stronger than the rest.

The Year of the Republican Women?

First, we head west to California and Nevada; the results from these states create one of the strongest themes of the evening.  In California, Carly Fiorina won her fight to become the GOP’s nominee for Senate, and Meg Whitman won the right to face former Governor Jerry Brown for Governor of the Golden State.  That’s right, California had twice the primaries and about three times the fun of other states, since they had their usual share of Propositions; there were three this time around, but only one of them was passed.  Notably, it was the one that reformed California’s primary system; in essence, according to the Huffington Post.  This is ultimately only a footnote to a night of primary elections, but a significant one at that.  According to the article, California voters chose to radically change their primaries going forward.  Now, they haven’t been effectively eliminated like many pundits are saying, but rather they have switched to an “open” style where party affiliation is not required to vote in a primary.

From the article, the motivation for passing this reform was the intense partisanship in the campaigns, and with accusations of demon sheep flying about, who can blame them?  Admittedly, I am a fan of the demon sheep ads, only because they’re so outrageous.  But now to the victors of the primaries; both Fiorina and Whitman are relatively moderate and experienced tech CEOs, and their success has made them the latest darlings of the Republican Party.  Desperate to appeal to the moderates who will be key to the general election, Fiorina and Whitman are seen as truly viable candidates who can attain broad appeal, unlike the tea party candidates who can only appeal to the base.

Speaking of tea party madness, we got another episode of that in Nevada.  Last night, Nevadans picked someone to carry the GOP’s standard that is potentially more controversial than Rand Paul, the Kentucky candidate who doesn’t believe in the Civil Rights Act among other things.  According to the Huffington Post, Sharron Angle believes only one parent should work, while the other stays at home with the kids, and bringing back prohibition, among other things.  In short, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to have fun with this campaign.  After all, these are only among the beginning revelations; more is sure to come out in the next few months.  In effect, the election should now be Reid’s to lose; Angle is so far to the right that Democrats should have no trouble painting her as too radical for Nevada.

Labor’s Loss

Tuesday night also saw the conclusion of the Bill Halter-Senator Blanche Lincoln battle in Arkansas.  You may recall that Senator Lincoln came under fire from organized labor because of her stance on health care reform.  Labor had hoped to send a message to the other conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats by throwing their weight behind Halter and defeating Lincoln in the primary.  The actual primary was a few weeks ago, and the result was such that it forced a runoff on Tuesday between Halter and Lincoln.  By all means, having the backing of the establishment this year should be the doom of an incumbent up for reelection, but in Lincoln’s case it paid off.  According to Politics Daily, the key in this race was that Lincoln’s campaign hit back at the unions, accusing Halter of using outside influence to buy the electorate.  In fact, President Clinton himself cut an ad for Lincoln to that effect.

Senator Lincoln’s primary win also gave a glimmer of hope to incumbents everywhere.  So far, this year was shaping up to be a disaster to anyone who could be tied to the Washington establishment.  By ultimately prevailing over a challenger backed by powerful interests, Senator Lincoln has proven that it is indeed possible for an establishment candidate to win amid strong anti-incumbent feelings.  With the number of incumbents up for reelection this season, the symbolism of Senator Lincoln’s victory is more important than the practical consequences.  Thanks to Senator Lincoln, the rest of the Blue Dogs can rest a little easier, safe in the knowledge that organized labor’s threat to back their challengers does not have enough bite to be a worry.

Or does it?  At one point, Senator Lincoln was up by 14 points in the primary matchup.  Not only was she forced into a runoff with Bill Halter, her margin of victory in that was approximately 4%.  While Halter ultimately faltered, his “netroots” and labor-backed campaign managed to erase ten percentage points from Lincoln’s lead.  Not all the Blue Dogs up for reelection this year have that comfortable a margin.  It is quite possible that some of them will be upset; freshman Senator Bennett of Colorado and Senator McCain are flagged by Politico as being particularly vulnerable.  Then again, it seems like the only thing that anyone can predict this election is unpredictability.

The And They’re Off! General Election 2010 Gets Underway by The New Age of Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tags: Bill Halter, California, Carly Fiorina, Democratic Party, elections, GOP, Harry Reid, Meg Whitman, organized labor, Politics, Primary election, Proposition 14, Republican Party, Senator Blanche Lincoln, unions, United States Senate