SUPER PRIMARIES 2010
By Bonnie K. Goodman
Ms. Goodman is the Editor / Features Editor at HNN. She has a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University, and has done graduate work in history at Concordia University.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times Meg Whitman prevailed in the California G.O.P. primary for governor.
IN FOCUS: STATS
- Primary Election Results June 8th – NYT
- Lincoln Bucks Tide; Business Leaders Win in California – NYT, 6-8-10
- Live Blogging the Primaries: From California to Maine, Georgia to Nevada, a dozen states are holding primaries and runoff contests for key Senate, House and governor’s races. Polls have closed in South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas, New Jersey, Maine, South Dakota, Iowa, Nevada and California…. – NYT Caucus, 6-8-10
THE HEADLINES….
- Tuesday’s Primaries: Lincoln Triumphs in Ark.; Whitman, Fiorina Win in Calif.: Final results are still coming in from the 12 states with primaries Tuesday but a few headlining outcomes have emerged, notably that incumbent Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln has survived a challenge in that state’s Democratic primary to run for a third term…. – PBS Newshour, 6-9-10
- California Republicans tap women to lead ticket: Once, California Democrats led the way to a year of the women. Now, nearly two decades later, Republicans hope it’s their turn. Meg Whitman won the party’s nomination for California governor on Tuesday and Carly Fiorina will carry the GOP banner into the fall campaign for a Senate seat, a pair of wealthy businesswomen and first-time candidates running against veteran politicians in a year of palpable anti-establishment sentiment.
In next-door Nevada, a third woman contender, Sharron Angle, won the right to oppose Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the fall. And hundreds of miles to the east, South Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley outpaced three male rivals in a race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Shy of a majority, she will face Rep. Gresham Barrett in a June 22 runoff in a solidly Republican state…. – AP, 6-9-10 - Whitman and Fiorina Win in Calif.; Lincoln Prevails in Ark.: Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, who ascended to the top of the business world before turning to politics, prevailed on Tuesday in their respective battles for the Republican nominations for the United States Senate and governor in California, setting the stage for costly general election fights this fall…. – NYT, 6-9-10
- Whitman, Fiorina cruise to victories Republicans choose wealthy businesswomen to oppose Democrats Brown and Boxer for governor and U.S. senator: California Republicans reached for history in Tuesday’s primary elections, as Meg Whitman claimed the party’s nomination for governor and Carly Fiorina won the GOP race for the U.S. Senate, results that gave women the Republican nominations for the two most powerful statewide political offices for the first time.
The two wealthy businesswomen, who powered their first electoral bids with millions of dollars of their own money, swept into election day as the front-runners and rode the momentum of an angry electorate that spurned the appeals of veteran politicians competing against them on the ballot. Neither one touted her gender overtly on the campaign trail, but Whitman embraced it Tuesday night as she greeted supporters near Universal Studios.
“Career politicians in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., be warned — you now face your worst nightmare; two businesswomen from the real world who know how to create jobs, balance budgets and get things done!” she said, after congratulating Fiorina. LAT, 6-9-10 - Whitman easily defeats Poizner: Meg Whitman, who spent a record-smashing $71 million of her own money to sell herself as a political outsider from the corporate world who could turn California around, decisively defeated Steve Poizner on Tuesday to become the first woman in state history to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
“This gal is on a mission. … I’m all in,” the billionaire former eBay CEO declared at her lavish victory party at the Universal City Hilton in Los Angeles, where 500 supporters ate and drank amid signs declaring, “Fiscal responsibility is on the way.”… – SF Chronicle, 6-9-10 - Anti-Incumbent Rage Bypasses Arkansas: On a primary election night when the heralded anti-incumbency sentiment was expected to again demonstrate its strength, Senator Blanche Lincoln proved there were clear limits to its power.
Virtually written off as a likely victim of voter outrage at veteran politicians, Mrs. Lincoln, a two-term Arkansas Democrat, showed that an experienced office-holder with money, message and determination still had a chance to prevail even in a toxic environment.
“Blanche has proven once again she is a true independent voice for the people of Arkansas, but she is also a fighter for what she believes in and will never stop standing up for her convictions or for her state,” said Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee…. – NYT, 6-9-10 - GOP picks NV tea party candidate in Reid battle: Nevada Republicans Tuesday picked tea party insurgent Sharron Angle to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, marking the start of an epic showdown between a king of Capitol Hill and a conservative renegade who wants to turn Washington on end. The choices couldn’t be more different.
Reid, 70, is the bland, sometimes prickly Democratic powerhouse who tells Nevadans, “I’m just who I am.” Angle, 60, is a fiercely committed small-government, low-tax crusader, an outsider even in the GOP, who says, “I am the tea party.” The former school teacher and legislator grabbed the nomination after a brutal primary in which her rivals depicted her as too extreme to appeal to independents who often cast the decisive votes in centrist Nevada. She benefited when one-time front-runner Sue Lowden was widely mocked for suggesting consumers use chickens to barter with doctors…. – AP, 6-9-10 - Nevada governor loses job after 4 years of scandal: Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons has been thrown out of office after a tumultuous term that was marred by a bitter divorce and allegations of infidelities. The first-term Republican lost the GOP primary Tuesday to former federal judge Brian Sandoval. Rory Reid won the Democratic primary, earning a spot at the top of the ballot next to his senator father. Gibbons is the latest incumbent to be ousted this election year. But his woes had more to do with his own problems than anti-incumbent rage prevalent in other states…. – AP, 6-9-10
- Runyan wins N.J. GOP primary: Former Eagles lineman Jon Runyan posted the first victory of his political career Tuesday, holding off a feisty tea-party-backed challenger in the Republican primary in New Jersey’s Third Congressional District. In the fall, Runyan will face the better-funded freshman U.S. Rep. John Adler (D., N.J.) in what is expected to be one of the nation’s most closely watched and expensive races.
Underscoring the importance of this race for Republicans, Gov. Christie went to Runyan’s Mount Laurel strip-mall headquarters to share in the celebration Tuesday night. “Make sure we send the right Jon to Washington, D.C., in November, not the wrong John,” the governor said. “It’s time to get rid of John Adler and time to bring common sense to Washington.”
Runyan quipped: “This reminds me of a post-game speech that Coach [Andy] Reid would have: ‘Take the night off, get back to work tomorrow.'”… – PA Inquirer, 6-9-10 - SC Dem upset: Jobless vet to face GOP’s Jim DeMint: An unemployed military veteran who raised no funds and put up no campaign website shocked South Carolina’s Democratic Party leadership by capturing the nomination Tuesday to face Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint in November. With nearly all precincts reporting, Alvin Greene, 32, commanded 59 percent of the vote against 41 percent for former four-term state lawmaker Vic Rawl, 64, who had raised about $186,000 and had to abruptly scrap a late-week fundraiser for the fall.
“I would’ve liked very much to be a candidate against Jim DeMint,” Rawl said, describing his sole primary rival as something of a mystery. “I never saw him. I’ve still never met him.”
As for Greene, he couldn’t explain it either but thanked voters in a state numb with high unemployment and said: “Let’s continue to make history and get South Carolina back to work.”… – AP, 6-9-10
HISTORIANS & ANALYSTS’ COMMENTS
- Democrat Lincoln’s Arkansas Primary Tests Dislike of Incumbents: “There is no way Lincoln’s defeat can be seen as anything but people being upset with incumbents,” said Julian Zelizer, a history and public policy professor at Princeton University in New Jersey.
“You see the center-left tension” within the Democratic Party playing out in the Lincoln-Halter race, Zelizer said.
An Angle win might fuel other anti-establishment candidates, Zelizer said. “The question with the Tea Party is, is this a serious movement that can do serious things?” he said. “To the extent they’re successful, they get more people involved.”… – Business Week, 6-8-10
History Musings 