Conventional Wisdom is that Harry Reid may be yesterday’s big winner, even though he wasn’t on the ballot. He’ll be running against Sharron Angle, who by all accounts is even more off-the-wall that the Chicken Lady.
I understand Dems are also happy that Carly Fiorina won the California senatorial primary and will be the one campaigning against Barbara Boxer. I’d like to hear from y’all in California about that.
Lincoln won over Halter in Arkansas — see Marc Ambinder and Gabriel Winant.
Update: Here’s a blast from the past. Remember all the hysteria about fluoride in drinking water being a Communist plot? Apparently the winner of the GOP Nevada Senate primary, Sharron Angle, used to be one of the marching anti-fluoride crusaders.
I’m not much of a handicapper, but I am a Californian. I don’t like Fiorina as the nominee, because as a fresh face, she’s dangerous. Sure, she’s an idiot, and will likely talk her way out of a win. But based on other results out here, CA voters are voting some pretty dumb things this year (yes on 14, no on 15, yes on insurance scam), and people will take a look at her. Campbell is old news, been rejected too many times by the voters.
I live in NY, but for entertainment puposes only, I wish “Oily Taint” had won the primary for CA Secratary of State. It would have been fun watching her try to run alongside Meg and Carly, while they were running as far from her as possible. It would have been like a political “Three Stooges” short, with “Oily” in the Curly Joe role.
I hope Californians remember how good they had it under Jerry Brown, back in the day. And how Boxer is, and will be, a much better Senator than the other woman, who is financing her own campaign on the “Here, take this buy-out, just please get the f#@k outta here” money her company gave her.
But, Bruce K, you’re right. Californians do some mighty strange things in the voting booth, or whatever they have out there…
I wonder how much of Halter’s loss can be attributed to the closing of all but two polling places (out of 42 total) in Garland County, where he won by 3 points in the initial primary? How many of the voters in those long lines gave up and went home without casting their votes?
Very convenient for Blanche Lincoln in any case; it sure looks to me like the fix was in for the corporate candidate. Or the corporate patsy, I should say, since Lincoln is a sure bet to lose to Boozman in November. (Heckuva job, Clinton and Obama, with your robocalls for Blanche, you’ve just “flushed [a senate seat] down the toilet” in a “pointless exercise”!
I will derive some Schadenfreude from watching her go down in flames in the general, though; might as well have a real Republican in place of a fake Democrat.
It’s a little known fact that California is and has always been divided geographically for years. Thought of as a ‘blue’ state, the only ‘blue’ portion of the state lives on our coast. The valley that runs up and down the middle of the state is not just red, it’s scarlet. Fiorina’s win is only celebrated in the valley.
Got an email from Boxer’s campaign, saying that Fiorina has a net worth of around $100 million, and spent $5 million on the primary. Somewhat parallel races: two wealthy, Republican women (Fiorina and Whitman), political novices, challenging well known Democrats (Boxer and Jerry Brown). California has a reputation for wealthy Republicans trying to get into high office, only to blow lots of cash for nothing (I certainly hope the pattern repeats). Boxer has a pattern of coming up from behind late in the game to win, but unless Fiorina screws up, I think Barbara is in for a tough race. Certainly Fiorina has the war chest, although Barbara’s been pitching for money for months. Not a peep from Jerry Brown.
Fiorina is a truly cringe-inducing individual. This comment was from a Daily Kos diary:
I was in a dinor the other day, and overheard a political ad on the TV. It was a female voice, mouthing standard GOP talking points, simple minded stuff about how bizness creates jobs and so we must worship bizness (my paraphrase). And yet, the tone of the voice sounded rather reasonable and not too far out in wingnut territory. I turned and looked at the screen and was stunned to see Carly Fiorina, looking and sounding like a halfway normal human being, albeit mouthing GOP talking points. She’s hired some people who know how to make her look and sound good, reducing (at least for me) the cringe factor. Karl Rove’s philosphy about political ads was: “turn the sound down”, go for the emotions, and on this count – no matter how badly Fiorina screwed up HP, and comes off as a grasping self-centered opportunist, and no matter how many times Barbara Boxer drives these points home, she’s got a chance if this TV ad is any indication.
Meg Whitman, did I read she spent $90 million to win the primary? That she has a real wingnut kook from Florida (was his name Hasmin? something like that) as an advisor on her campaign? (God help California if she wins and this kook’s ideas for running the state take hold). My impression of Whitman FWIW, is that despite her vast riches, she’s made some major goofs already. She comes across as being as detached and out of touch as King Louis XIV in Versailles. I love Jerry Brown, but sadly he is a retread despite his huge resume of experience. At least I can take Whitman’s personality for about fifteen seconds longer than I can take that blatant phoney Fiorina.
I’m worried about Carly & Meg both. Granted I live in deep-red CA-50 (San Diego), which miraculously voted for Obama — first dem pres vote from this district in as long as I can remember — but the airwaves here are flooded with ads that use “liberal” as a slur. People are generally pissed at “the establishment” and I think both these candidates can very dangerously leverage their outsider / business-person cred into the illusion of competence.
I think we’ve burned way too many times by “wow that guy’s a nutball, good thing he won ’cause nobody will vote for him!” e.g. Bush.
Remember, this state voted for Schwarzeneggar. MULTIPLE times.
You know I keep hearing bobbleheads and read in columns and on blogs that the tea party is winning all these races. Every person that has won any of these races has been either a republican’t or a Democrat. What is with this tea party bullshit, there is no such thing, Rand Paul is a Republican’t, Sharron Angle is a republican’t. Can anyone name one politician who is registered as a teabagger? This whole teabagger meme is just a way for republicants to hide the fact that they belong to the party that was responsible for two un-winnable wars, the largest transfer of wealth (from poor to rich) in generations, and one of the worst financial collapse in our history. And our “liberal†media plays right along with the whole scam, must be good for ratings.
It seems to be very trendy for wealthy narcissistic egoists to take a bunch of their money and run for office with the idea that government is the same as business. It is NOT.
PseudoNoise, I almost moved to Fallbrook back in ’89. Some of my friends who lived near Bonsal told me that was “Clan” territory.
N. San Diego County is beautiful, at least it was back then.
Former HP employees – even very conservative ones – will not be having good things to say about this woman.
I smell a potential political ad. Turn her “successful businesswoman” schtick against her by showing HP working people talking about getting screwed and/or laid off by high executive Failorina who then walked off rich — almost everyone can relate to this.
@erinyes: Santee (SE San Diego) is known as “Klantee” (just google Klantee in face), but that’s not in the 50th. CA-50 has a fun combination of lots of conservative-leaning residents working at MCAS Miramar, previously socially-conservative latino community in Escondido, and the very nice well-to-do areas of Solana Beach / Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe (at one time highest income zip code in CA or something like that). So the CA-50 runs deep red. It’ll be interesting if the AZ immigration debacle turns Escondido more democratic.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=CA&district=50
It’s not just former HP employees, just about anyone working in a tech job in Silicon Valley during that period remembers Fiorina’s disastrous time there. She came to a company that was well respected and the company you hoped your company might grow up to be someday, and ruined it. Completely trashed the place, culturally and financially. Since that’s her main claim to “fame”, you’d think she’d be hiding it.
That said, she’s got a ton of money she’s willing to spend to buy the office. There are a LOT of mind-bogglingly Republican voters in CA who hate Boxer. It won’t be an easy win for Boxer.
@Mike G – I was thinking something similar. All Boxer needs to do is find someone (ideally multiple people) in the Hewlett or Packard families to make an ad for her. I read that these families were/turned against Fiorina, and (my guess) helped fuel HP’s board’s move to oust her. I hope Barbara can find someone willing to come forward, but it’ll probably only happen if Boxer’s campaign is struggling near the finish line.