The Wave Only Gets Bigger

Riddle me this MS: All of the Dems in AK, PA, and KY races got more votes than their Republican counterparts. Granted, PA (Toomey) was without a real opponent. But Both Dem Senate Candidates got more votes than Rand Paul (220K+ to Rand’s 200+K). I think the MSM needs to go back to the magic drawing board.

I think you need to reconsider the anti-incumbency theme. It’s not as if people are just bored with the same old names and are changing channels. It’s that people feel they’ve been screwed by the economy and they know the government is somewhat responsible. Incumbents can protect themselves by… not screwing people.

Not too mention that it’s hard to include Specter in your analogy and keep a straight face. He was a Republican who was facing his party’s wrath and was looking for political cover so he could keep his job. Yes the Democrats made a deal with him to switch and Obama kept his word, and raised money, cut ads, and gave Specter his endorsement. But apparently that wasn’t enough, because for some reason there are some folks in Philly that imagined that Black inner city voters were just going to show up at the president insistence and cast a ballot for Arlen. On the president’s part there was never any passion for supporting Specter. The president kept his word no more no less and there wasn’t any animostiy towards Sestak either. In fact Sestak went out of his way to avoid saying anything negative about President Obama, he understood the position the president was in and more importantly, in the last week when the Democratic base made it clear which candidate they preferred, Obama respected his base enough to step back and let the thing play out rather than to continue to coerce them into voting for Sspecter as some Philly Democrats wanted.

Good Comment and completely true.

Here we go again! The media mantra is, well, ridiculous.
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Specter was a Republican running in a Dem primary, did you really expect him to win?
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Paul beat a Republican.
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Republicans lost in PA 12.
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Lincoln has her work ahead of her, but she acted more Republican than Dem.
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Looks more like a Republican loss to me.

That sounds like excellent news for Republicans!

Once the CW script is written nothing will shake it loose from the grip of the media.

“He was a Republican who was facing his party’s wrath and was looking for political cover so he could keep his job. Yes the Democrats made a deal with him to switch and Obama kept his word, and raised money, cut ads, and gave Specter his endorsement.”
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He was a RINO (but a Demo before he switched to be a R) who sold his soul(?) to the Dems. Its seems 2 unprincipled entities (Spector & Demos) are getting what they deserve.

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Specter was a Republican running in a Dem primary, did you really expect him to win?”

It seems that yes the Demos did. Obama (Dems party leader) endorsed him, Rendell (Dems state leader) endorsed him, the liberal newspapers endorsed him, Sestak was offered (illegally) a job by Obama a job- so yes Spector voted 95% of the time with Demos.

To use your Lincoln comparison he was more like a Democrat than a Repub

Keep grasping at that straw!

If I were looking for “a model of Southern moderation” in 2010, I would pick Claire McCaskill, or Warner or Webb from VA. I think all three are too cautious, too conservative, too wedded to worn out Broderist tropes about what constitutes centrism and fiscal responsibility, but certainly Southerners, certainly moderates when considering the gamut of the Senate. None of the three threw such public tantrums against health care reform, none has sought so consistently to distance themselves from Obama and the national party as the odious Ms Lincoln. To my knowledge none of them, nor even Mark Pryor–who’s so conservative he doesn’t believe in Evolution–went so far out of their way to spit in the face of unions. Blanche Lincoln ran to the corporatist, Big Business Right going into a Democratic party in a cycle dominated by a poor economy, a poor economy caused by unchecked corporate malfeasance. I despise Arlen Specter, and I’m glad the shape-shifting, self-serving weasel lost, but I would gladly have seen him run out the clock in the Senate if I could have traded that for the pleasure of seeing the stupid and soulless Blanche Lincoln be put out to graze in the tall grass of corporate lobbying. Hell, she’d probably be happier there.

There’s nothing here either party can take away from this.
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These are primaries for the most part.

Just want to point out that Sestak had plenty negative to say about Obama back when Obama was running in a primary and Sestak was Hillary’s man. He went out of his way then in his advocacy.
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Don’t think there’s much love lost there, but Sestak’s in the weaker position, obviously. He seems to be working overtime to get on the President’s good side, at least in public.

Exactly, tstar. Once again we see MS has drunk the MSM Kool-Aid and is pushing (as alas Alex is) that Rand Paul’s win has a huge significance.

If I was a Repub in KY, I would be worried that so many Dems showed up for the primary.

In the end, I think it will be jobs that are important in KY and I’m not sure Paul’s message, such as it is, will prevail.

Once again we see MS has drunk the MSM Kool-Aid and is pushing (as alas Alex is) that Rand Paul’s win has a huge significance.

The medias job is to create significance. It doesn’t matter whether it reflects reality, It’s simply what they need in order to maintain their own role.
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The fact that, as I noted before, the effort to create a single story line and apply to multiple elections necessitates tossing away any information that runs counter to the story. It’s not much of a pathway toward truth but they just can’t help it!

Of course Sestak said some negative things during the primary with Hillary, Obama was the opponent. However, if Hillary and Obama can unite there is no reason to think that Sestak couldn’t unite as well. He supported the President immediately after Hillary conceded the race and that’s enough for me this is politics after all its not personal or at least its not supposed to be or didn’t used to be before the likes of Newt Gingrich in 1994. And freepa, as to Democrats getting what they deserve — I agree, Democrats deserve to keep the office of US Senate from PA in their coffers and with Sestak they will. There’s little doubt that as soon as the citizens of Pennsylvania take a god look at Toomey the are going to run for the nearest Democrat for safety and sanity..

MS:
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If your so-called “analysis” has been shot down in flames. I would take a look at Grape’s contribution from the “Dispatch from Kentucky” blog:
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/05/19/dispatch-from-kentucky/comment-page-1/#comment-165531
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In calling attention to this, the number of Democratic voters outstripped the number of GOP voters in a red state, by a wide margin.
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On top of that, looking at the PA-12 retention, and the Sastek win, along with Blanch Lincoln, one can see that there is no basis whatsoever to make any sort of claim for either of the following:
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1. The teabaggers are going to change the actionable course of American politics
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2. Enthusiasm among Democrats is less than the enthusiasm among the GOPers.

If I remember right, Specter was a Dem before he became a Repub.
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Specter has used the political party system for one thing, to get elected to office. He really never felt like he owed anybody any allegience–except the State of PA. He has been a good senator to us. And I hope he can find enjoyment in his retirement.
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The only race I am unhappy about is the Congressional race for 3rd District. Kathy Dahlkemper needs to go and since she won the primary, I will be forced to throw my support behind the Repub candidate I know nothing about.

AR

Jim, Jim you are great. Well put.