(USA Today) I haven't as of yet ever covered the results of a primary election in any state this year. I did cover the results of the general election in Virginia, New Jersey, and the special election in New York. Today I'm covering the primary elections that took place in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. The reason for this is that I live in Kentucky, which is one of the states that held primary elections yesterday. I worked in the polls in Kentucky's election. I enjoy the privilege to serve in the elections in some facet. There were local races in my hometown such as County Judge Executive, city and county commissioners, and races in the Kentucky state legislature. All the U.S. House seats in Kentucky are up for re-election. There is a U.S. Senate seat that's open due to U.S. Senator Jim Bunning deciding to not run for re-election. In that race Rand Paul , son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul and a Tea Party favorite, won the Republican nomination over Secretary of State Trey Grayson very handily. Jack Conway won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate race. He narrowily defeated Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo. Mongiardo was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2004 where he narrowly lost to Jim Bunning. In the second Congressional district, U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie received no opposition in the Republican primary. He is running for his second term as Congressman.
There were more incumbents in the list that were voted out in the primary. Republican turned Democrat Arlen Specter was ousted by Congressman Joe Sestak. Thank the Lord for that. I remember one time at a Senate judiciary committee hearing for a Supreme Court candidate, Specter called the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision as a "super-duper precedent." I classify Sestak's victory over Specter as a "super-duper victory". It was super-duper good that Specter lost this race. He lost his bid for a sixth term in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. Sestak beat Obama's candidate with the help of liberal Democratic groups such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America. Specter promised to support Sestak to keep the Democrats in power in November. Specter was elected as a Republican in 1980 under Ronald Reagan's coattails. Specter bolted from the Republican Party last year because he felt he would have a better chance of winning if he ran as a Democrat. He was wrong! There was a special election held in Pennsylvania's 12th district. Mark Critz, an aide to the late Democratic Congressman John Murtha, defeated Republican Tim burns, who had hoped to capture the seat that Murtha for 36 years. John Murtha died of complications from gall bladder surgery on February 8. Murtha was chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. Burns, who won as a Washington outsider, won the GOP bid bid Tuesday. Both Critz and Burns will face each other for a full two-year term in the fall.
In Arkansas, Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln at Lt. Governor Bill Halter will be headed to a June 8 run-off after neither candidate secured 50% of the vote. Halter has criticized Lincoln for her positions on healthcare. It was good to see the voters in these states are waking up to the fact that there must be a change of leadership. It's great that Sestak defeated Specter. I hope that in the June 8 run-off Halter will defeat Lincoln. Voters of both parties need to defeat their incumbents in the primaries. The time for choosing candidates is in the state primaries. It's too late to wait until the general election when all that's left is the lesser of two evils and neither candidate is worth ten cents. There's a better chance of choosing a more quality candidate in the primary. Voters in both parties in the remainder of the states need to vote in droves and vote out their incumbents. If there is any chance we can rattle things in Washington, we must do it by voting out the vast majority of incumbents on both sides of the aisle.
No comments:
Post a Comment