(USA Today) During this election cycle, I've only covered primary results one time--that was when Kentucky participated in the primary elections on May 18. I live in the state of Kentucky, which is why I covered the primaries held in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. Today I'm covering the primary results for both Florida and Arizona. I have partial results for Alaska and Oklahoma. The reason why I'm covering this particular primary is because I have a comment I desire to make.
Big campaign war chests helped four-term incumbent John McCain easily win his Republican primary in Arizona over former Congressman J.D. Hayworth. McCain spent more than $20 million in Arizona to defeat Hayworth and win a chance for a fifth term. Taking a shot at his one-time rival, President Obama, McCain predicted voters will place Republicans back in charge of Congress in November. "Americans can't afford to continue on the course we've been on," he told supporters. It's tragic McCain defeated Hayworth. Hayworth ran a very ineffective campaign. If anyone believes that John McCain has seen the light about amnesty--think again. He's not going to push to build a border fence like he promised he would do in a campaign ad. McCain was pandering to conservative voters in Arizona because he knew he had to pander to the right in order to win re-election. That's how McCain is. Once McCain wins re-election in November (I predict) he'll be back to the same old tricks as usual. He'll work with President Obama in passing an amnesty bill next year if nothing is passed this year. You can't trust McCain. Republican voters in Arizona made a huge mistake in re-electing McCain. Voters aren't committed enough to voting out the incumbents. The time to vote out the incumbents is in the primary. Sadly, Arizonoans re-elected an incumbent in the primary. On a positive note, Jan Brewer won the Republican nomination for governor of Arizona. She's the governor that signed Arizona's new anti-immigration bill, which allowed police to demand identification of suspected illegal immigrants. In the Phoenix area, former vice-president Dan Quayle's son, Ben, was one of 10 candidates seeking the GOP nod in a solidly Republican district.
In Florida, businessman Jeff Greene is a millionaire newcomer who used his personal fortune trying to break into Florida politics. He lost the Democratic Senate primary to veteran congressman Kendrick Meek. Meek will compete against Republican candidate Marco Rubio and Independent candidate Charlie Crist who is currently Florida's governor. Crist bolted from the GOP to run as an independent due to the huge lead that Rubio had over Crist at the time. A Quinnipiac poll last week showed Crist leading the field and drawing more support than Meek from Democratic voters. That's bad news for the Senate nominee of both major parties according to Peter Brown assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute and a Florida resident. "If Charlie Crist is able to get more Democratic voters than the Democratic nominee, he's likely Florida's next senator," Brown said. Democrat Alex Sinks' effort to become Florida's first woman governor has been helped by the sharply negative tone of the GOP primary fight, said Jim Davis, a former Democratic Congressman from Tampa. He said the level of negative advertising has been unprecedented. Complicating the fall campaign between Sink, the state's chief financial officer, and Scott, ex-CEO of scandal-plagued health care gian Columbia/HCA, is Chiles, son of former Democratic governor Lawton Chiles. In the Republican race for governor, newcomer Rick Scott upset a party stalwart in Florida's gubernatorial contenst, it sets up a three-way battle for the fall. Scott used $39 million of his personal fortune to defeat state Attorney General Bill McCollum, back by ex-governor Jeb Bush.
In the primary races in Alaska and Oklahoma, the information I have is sketchy. So, I'll report what I know. In Alaska's GOP race for the U.S. Senate, state legislator Joe Miller has a narrow lead over Senator Lisa Murkowski as of to date. In Oklahoma's runoff election in the 2nd Congressional district, Charles Thompson beat Daniel Edmonds. In the 5th Congressional district, James Lankford defeated Kelvin Caley.
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