Loading ...THERE’S GOT TO BE A MORNING AFTER
Wow, that was fun. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a political nail-biter. Hillary got a slim victory over Barack 51-49 (White men saved her while Blacks kept Obama competitive). In the end, Clinton only won by 22,412 votes out of 1.25 million voters or a 1.78 percent difference. She needed a big win, but didn’t get it. It’s like a student who needed a high “A” on his exam to pass the class, but instead got a “C-.”
Jill Long Thompson is sitting on a victory over Jim Schellinger in the Democratic Primary. Two observations about that race were that in Marion County Schellinger won by less than 3 percentage points. Had his margin been bigger, he would be declaring victory right now. Also, Schellinger was the party favorite. With his loss, I can hear the bodies start to hit the floor over at One North Capitol in downtown Indianapolis.
Andre Carson is living proof the Carson name is a brand and still works. However, there is a chink in the armor. 54 percent of people who voted in that primary chose someone other than Carson. If the GOP can figure out a way to capture that discontent, they just might be able to win the 7th one day.
And Dan Burton is living proof that you can never overstay your welcome.
Now that all this is over, I’m going to spend the next few days with a martini in one hand, a beautiful woman in the other and a cigar in my mouth. And I might even switch them around a bit.
See you next week.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:48 am
The negative ads ran by Dr. O against Carson and Myers will only help to strengthen the “R”s in November. Dr. O is to the “R”s in helping Elrod as Clinton is to the “R”s in helping McCain.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Abdul said, “54 percent of people who voted in that primary chose someone other than Carson. If the GOP can figure out a way to capture that discontent, they just might be able to win the 7th one day.”
The notion that any Republican can win in the 7th, especially with the likelihood of zero financial support from his party, is far-fetched. What would it take, Carson’s family inviting Farrakhan to speak? That’s been done (at Julia’s funeral) and hardly anyone noticed or cared.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Burton and Carson?! After everything this past summer and in the Indiana Assembly, we still get Burton and Carson? How did Ballard ever win? Was it some divine, once in a lifetime, hitting the lottery, never-to-be- repeated turn of events? With millions spent every day in a land that can’t tolerate coexistence of their own sects, healthcare at 2-3 x the rate of inflation, oil with no apparent ceiling or check, over 80% out-of-wedlock birth rate for black children in Marion county, 70% of the state reflecting the entire nation wanting borders secured, and economic default awaiting at current spending levels in 5-10 years - we STILL get hacks like Burton and Carson?! When we could have elected educated candidates, capable of serious deliberaton and discussion on an array of issues, we STILL choose Burton and Carson? The people have spoken and they’ve said, it’s all about “me”.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:16 am
It was a late night movie which had alittle of everything. Racism, sexism,old & young are words now politically reinvented as ‘identity politics’. We should offer Identity Oscars that go to:
Rural Indiana who never saw a black guy they didn’t dislike.
Urban areas where blood is thicker than water.
Women who can’t see past pms.
College students who prefer youth above experience.
The elderly who prefer safety over risks.
Money grubbing bottom feeders who sold their vote for a half tank of gas for the summer.
Incumbents who for the first time had to pay dearly to perpetuate their ineptness.
Newcomers who showed all is not well in Indiana.
Operation Chaos where thousands of registered Republicans voted as spoilers for the opposition.
An Indiana County that couldn’t count.
Unprepared voting places, pretending suprise that they ran out of democratic ballots.
Popcorn anyone?
May 7th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Patriot Paul,
Americans generally get the kind of government that that they deserve. Are the people who are elected a direct reflection of the people who voted them in? I tend to believe so as history has always shown this to be true time and time again and eection after election.
Are the actions of Dan Burton more of a reflection of the daily actions of his own constituency? One may be inclined to answer yes.
I believe that America ends up with the kind of elected officials it wants and consequently what it deserves.
The dumbing down of the American electorate started a long time ago and all of us have been willing participants.
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May 7th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Paul: You clearly don’t understand election mechanics, or you wouldn’t have made the comments about process.
I think the Andre remarks are on-point. But Bob Miller is right. If Jon Elrod wants to beat Andre, he’ll need a half mil from the national party.
Not gonna happen.
I’m still trying to digest the whole cross-over-vote thing. I love politics, and I want voters to have their say. But the primary process is closed for a reason–each party chooses its nominees.
If the cross-overs did so for purely philosophical reasons–they’ve had an epiphany or something–fine and dandy. But if they did so just for mischief, then shame on them. It wastes a precious resource: your vote. The right to vote has been defended in wars and by millions of fallen veterans. It’s nuts to toss that aside in a cavlier manner for a momentary “gotcha” at the polls.
Such actions cheapen citizenship. Which should always be a valued natural resource.
It’s actually kinda sleezy. Which is why the crossover’s main natural promoter was an oxycontin-popping hypocritical nut case.
Nnow, if someone wants to have an intellegent discussion about turning over nominating mechanics to each party in a convention setting, let’s have at it. But as long as we do it the way we do it–it should be closed to non-believers of each party.
And no, that’s not undemocratic (small “D”).
May 7th, 2008 at 9:14 am
To “think again”. You have a point if we lived in a world of pure, unadulteraded motives and sinless identity. But it was Party Politics that opened the process from closed to a free for all. Your comments would be better directed to the party gamesmen who perpetuates this system which invites and caters to bottom feeder mentality that prompts the politic mischief. If you don’t want tampering by outsiders of the Party, then reform the Party rules.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Good points Think Again. Most voters, on both sides, do not understand that their supposed “rights” to vote in party’s primary is somehow constitutionally guaranteed. It isn’t.
Open public primaries like we have today are a new invention. Nominees in the old days were decided in party conventions with delegates coming from the grassroots up.
Personally, I would like to see it go back to closed conventions where the party platform stands for something.
I would like to see it go back to the closed convention system to force people to participate and to cut down the influence of special interest money in the nominating process.
Today, poltical parties bear no resemblence to their parties of old.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I hesitate to go down this path, but I’m going to take exception to Paul’s characterization of rural Indiana as somehow against black people.
If anything, the numbers show that black people vote for the black candidate more than white people vote for the white candidate.
Obama for example got something like 90% of the black vote but still 40% or more of the white vote. Hillary, a white woman, only got 8 to 10% of the black vote.
While it is true that the numbers skew as you get more rural, you also get more conservative and libertarian leaning people as you escape the more statist and liberal leaning population centers like Indianapolis.
Rural people just tend to, thank goodness, oppose more liberal candidates. You know, being all bitter with their religion and guns and stuff.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am
There’s a reason mothers stop boys from throwing dirt clods at each other. It leads to getting an eye out, hospital visits, money spent- bigger problems for everybody relative to the bit of conflict that started it. How are we served by dogmatic clinging to party affiliation when the stakes of our country’s survivial clearly demands bipartisan sacrifice? The clod throwing continues while statistics and daily headlines make it clear we’re all going to have to pitch-in and return to expectations of responsible behavior by citizenry and statesmanship by elected officials. Our grandparents grasp of “common sense” comes to mind. Put the dirt clods down.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Sean,
We have deep seated racism and sexism in our State that is magnified by elections. This open primary is a good example. The demographics reflect this. The comments of Jeramiah Wright dissuaded those previously inclined to vote a certain way. Coupled with Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, you might be surprised the amount of rural folks who live and breathe his radio marching orders. As you are with the Libertarian Party, you already know that once the convention style primary evolves into an open primary, these are process issues that the Party will need to address.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am
You know I was a bit disappointed when I originally got the results that Hilary won, but when looking deeper into the actual numbers that disappointment quickly went away. I do understand the political arena, but got a better taste of it after my brother coming to town to help educate the City of Indianapolis…Personally I think Abdul needs to be running for some political office, trust me…if I had my way, which I do have a small influence over him (smile) he’ll be running within the next 4 - 8 years, you’ll see. By the way Barack’s going to win it all….taking bets on that.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Here is the difficulty in the Democratic primary this year: if you vote against Hillary you hate women; if you vote against Obama you are racist.
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Yes, there are some of both. But there are other valid reasons why even honest, good thinking Democrats would reject one or the other of these two. I don’t think that I have seen any specific evidence to believe that racism or sexism played a major role in yesterday’s results.
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Operation Chaos was spectacularly successful yesterday. In the precinct that I was in yesterday, I believe Clinton received 20-30 votes from Republicans that will not vote for any Democrat in the fall. It is easy to believe that without Operation Chaos, Obama would have easily won Indiana. But the true objective of Operation Chaos is to make the Democrats to take the primary to the convention, which is exactly what is happening. Of course this is no different than Democrats switching to the Republican side in New Hampshire to vote for McCain.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Given the very specific demographics of the 7th District showing a clear majority white population Andre Carson could not have won with only the black vote.
And, if Operation Chaos was that effective you certainly would not have known it in Marion County.
The voting trend we saw yesterday may in fcat be the voting trend come November.
Don’t give Rush and Operatin Chaos more than they deserve. Most Hoosier voters, like myself, ain’t that damn smart.
McCain and the GOP may in fact have beem the real losers last night.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Patriot Paul, gentle blogger, if you understood Indiana law, you’d know my comments were indeed properly directed.
I didn’t say I liked the current primary system. But it is the law. It is a closed priamry system for a reason. Choosing a party has ramifications in all directions.
I am old enough to remember convention systems for picking many nominees. It worked OK, but it had its problems, too.
Joel–your view of potentially anti-female or racist votes, may have been true four months ago. But Barack Obama has transformed the way we do politics in this country. And his campaign has gotten beyond the narrow framework you describe. Just ask around.
This cannot be denied, and I’d never have given you a plug nickel for his chances 16 months ago, but: A one-term senator from Illinois early-on rejected the traditional DC ways, to run a true grassroots campaign. Whether you love his views or detest them, there is no doubt: he has raised more money than any candidate in history, and 90% of it or more is from average Joes and Josephines. Who can and will give again and again.
Hillary bet on the insiders, raising a lot of money up-front from them.
Both candidates gambled. It turned into a classic tortoise/hare race. Who knew?
He gambled, and it paid off. He could just as easily be having a liesurely DC lunch with Joe Biden and Chris Dodd today, on the sidelines, wondering “what if?” He judged the mood of the nation was anti-DC, and he’s right.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:43 am
This is how Ballard got elected. A relentless negative campaign against Peterson was run by activists and bloggers who united together across party lines.
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My goal was to keep the activists’ antics in the news week after week. The media was helpful to us. (More so than they are now).
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The factions who wanted Bart out met at the property tax protests I organized. We all worked together and networked each other and stayed in constant communication.
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For the most part, I quit the activism work in February due to personal reasons and no longer give it the 40+ hours a week I used to give it.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Very interesting, all the responses listed here. Why can we not find such depth of thought in the general population? Regardless of which side of the aisle you are from, we should all be concerned with some of the incumbents being reelected to represent us. Proof in my opinion that the voters are mostly sheep. Carson is beyond belief, given the competition. Burton? Same thing. Why will this country need a major political disaster before the sheep notice that they are the root cause.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
“Joel–your view of potentially anti-female or racist votes, may have been true four months ago. But Barack Obama has transformed the way we do politics in this country. And his campaign has gotten beyond the narrow framework you describe.”
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I have not described a narrow framework. My first paragraph was despair of how people interpret those voting against their candidate.
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Obama has emphatically NOT “transformed the way we do politics in this country.” He has been engaged in identity politics from the beginning. How is this different? There is nothing more typical of politicians than the entire batch that we have now (Hillary, Obama and McCain).
May 7th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
And the real winners are…..
Media and political pundits, like Abbie. Now I get to listen to him (and others ie Rush, Garrison, etc.) flap their all knowing gums about every politico’s whisker and fart until November. God (er Allah) help us.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
As I indicated earlier, Indiana has an open primary. You are allowed to vote at your discretion with little challenge as we just witnessed. I was given freedom on choice on whether I wanted a “d” ballot or an “r” ballot at 6:30 am. when I visited the polls and voted. The media has confirmed few challenges throughout the districts.
When the partisonship dies down, check out the statistics of race, seniors vs.young, educated vs.those without, those who sold their soul for a half tank of gas, those who allowed someone’s former pastor’s remarks to poison their thinking, and so on. We have identity politics at work, including the politics of fear. The Washington Post and other statistics are available on line & have the analysis of how our citizens and those of N.Carolina voted. Draw your own conclusions.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
My 16 year old son came home from school today and told me that he thought of a good line for a bumper sticker….”If Hillary wasn’t good enough for Bill, she’s not good enough for me.”
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At least he’s paying attention.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Black, white, rich, poor, rural, educated, What difference does it make? If that is what elections are about, then we are doomed anyway. Statistically speaking, the guy that wants to get rid of the IRS doesnt win because of the Brilliant marketing campaign of you will be throwing your vote away, still exists. Until this mentallity stops, forget about it. This election like the others is nothing but a popularity contest. Thats all you have. These people run ads to sell you something, no different than a car commercial. The only reason these millionares set foot in Indiana is because they wanted something from you that they need, and in return guess what you will get. More of the same. None of these millionares have said one thing that you havent heard before.