US Elections (non Presidential)

[Richard Allen]

Indiana senatorial primary today and it looks the GOP will continue their descent into fuckwitted, retarded idiocy by removing the highly respected 6 term senator Dick Lugar in favour of State Treasurer Richard Mourdock who is backed by the Tea Party. This will shift the seat from the easiest of GOP holds to a genuinely competitive race.

Also worth mentioning that while we gone for a few weeks Dennis Kucinich was crushed in the primary for Ohio's new 9th CD by the formidable Marcy Kaptur.

[slicesofjim]

It seems politically Kaptur is quite similar to Kucinich, but without his, ahem, 'kookiness'. She'll be up against the notorious 'Joe the Plumber' in November.

[iainbhx]

May 8, 2012 14:41:47 GMT slicesofjim said:

It seems politically Kaptur is quite similar to Kucinich, but without his, ahem, 'kookiness'. She'll be up against the notorious 'Joe the Plumber' in November.

And will beat him like the proverbial mule.

[greatkingrat]

Then again, Lugar is 80 and would be 86 by the end of his next term. I'm not a big fan of the American trend for Senators to carry on until they are carried out in a box. While Mourdock may be to the right of Lugar, I don't think he is a full on Palin style nut job.

[slicesofjim]

May 8, 2012 15:22:46 GMT iainbhx said:

May 8, 2012 14:41:47 GMT slicesofjim said:

It seems politically Kaptur is quite similar to Kucinich, but without his, ahem, 'kookiness'. She'll be up against the notorious 'Joe the Plumber' in November.

And will beat him like the proverbial mule.

I imagine and hope so.

[Richard Allen]

May 8, 2012 14:46:34 GMT @trident said:

May 8, 2012 14:18:13 GMT Richard Allen said:

Indiana senatorial primary today and it looks the GOP will continue their descent into fuckwitted, retarded idiocy by removing the highly respected 6 term senator Dick Lugar in favour of State Treasurer Richard Mourdock who is backed by the Tea Party. This will shift the seat from the easiest of GOP holds to a genuinely competitive race.

Also worth mentioning that while we gone for a few weeks Dennis Kucinich was crushed in the primary for Ohio's new 9th CD by the formidable Marcy Kaptur.

Richard, I may be doing you an injustice but I always assumed you would be supportive of the Tea Party.

I agree with them quite a bit on policy, which is why I can't stand them for completely discrediting the things they stand for through their stridency, hysteria, negativity and absolute refusal to compromise. They are ousting perfectly good conservative Senators and representatives on ridiculous grounds such as that they are willing to work with Democrats.

[Richard Allen]

May 8, 2012 14:41:47 GMT slicesofjim said:

It seems politically Kaptur is quite similar to Kucinich, but without his, ahem, 'kookiness'. She'll be up against the notorious 'Joe the Plumber' in November.

Kaptur is nothing like Kucinich. She is an old school blue collar democrat with very close union links and some socially conservative views.

[slicesofjim]

I meant in the sense that Kucinich as a left Democrat has not been replaced by a 'New' Democrat. I understand there are differences in a number of areas politically between them, in the sense that Kucinich is far more, let's say, Californian, than Ohian.

[tricky]

There were rumours of Kucinich looking at filing deadlines in Washington State straight after his primary loss.

[Richard Allen]

May 8, 2012 18:56:04 GMT tricky said:

There were rumours of Kucinich looking at filing deadlines in Washington State straight after his primary loss.

There were rumours along those lines before his primary loss. Kaptur was pretty brutal in using it against him.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Early days (14% of the vote in) but Lugar is behind 39 - 61 for Mourdock.

UPDATE: NBC News has now projected Lugar is out.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Electioneering for Mayor of Portland, Oregon, takes an unusual turn:

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PORTLAND_MAYOR

[Deleted]

Interesting republican primary in Nebraska tonight. The 'establishment' candidate Bruning appears to be trailing the upstart Fischer by about 4 points but Bruning was ahead by 16 only a week ago, the spread of polling is here www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/ne/nebraska_senate_republican_primary-2002.html. This race is interesting as although it is being cast as tea party v moderate establishment, it really isn't, all 3 have got various endoresments from both sides and to save repeating what somewhat else has done better- there is a decent background piece www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/nebraska-another-non-tea-party-upset-in-the-making/2012/05/14/gIQA1PXyPU_blog.html.

If Fischer does win, the most surprising thing will be that she has come from no where with no money and no obvious 'wing' to get support from. Doubt it will make a big difference to the general, provided whoever wins doesn't turn out to be a O'Donnell.

[Richard Allen]

May 15, 2012 21:51:25 GMT @paulmc said:

Interesting republican primary in Nebraska tonight. The 'establishment' candidate Bruning appears to be trailing the upstart Fischer by about 4 points but Bruning was ahead by 16 only a week ago, the spread of polling is here www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/ne/nebraska_senate_republican_primary-2002.html. This race is interesting as although it is being cast as tea party v moderate establishment, it really isn't, all 3 have got various endoresments from both sides and to save repeating what somewhat else has done better- there is a decent background piece www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/nebraska-another-non-tea-party-upset-in-the-making/2012/05/14/gIQA1PXyPU_blog.html.

If Fischer does win, the most surprising thing will be that she has come from no where with no money and no obvious 'wing' to get support from. Doubt it will make a big difference to the general, provided whoever wins doesn't turn out to be a O'Donnell.

O'Donnell would have probably won Nebraska quite comfortably.

[Richard Allen]

Getting rid of Lugar has certainly seems to have put the Indiana Senate seat in play. Rasmussen have Murdock and Donnelly tied at 42% each.

[East Anglian Lefty]

And it was a Rasmussen poll, which tend to have a tilt towards Republicans (although also a tilt towards inaccurate results).

That said, I have to suspect that in Indiana most undecideds will lean towards the right. It's also an online poll, which can be a bit less accurate, because they don't seem to have worked out how to screen their samples properly in the US.

Nevertheless, this could be an interesting contest, especially if Obama looks likely to win re-election easily and is able to commit resources to trying to hold Indiana.

[Richard Allen]

May 26, 2012 14:13:21 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

And it was a Rasmussen poll, which tend to have a tilt towards Republicans (although also a tilt towards inaccurate results).

That said, I have to suspect that in Indiana most undecideds will lean towards the right. It's also an online poll, which can be a bit less accurate, because they don't seem to have worked out how to screen their samples properly in the US.

Nevertheless, this could be an interesting contest, especially if Obama looks likely to win re-election easily and is able to commit resources to trying to hold Indiana.

Well I would certainly agree that in Indiana the undecided generally lean right but a big factor here is that right leaning Independents are likely to be unhappy at the GOP for ditching someone as well respected as Lugar. Add in that Donnelly is pretty conservative for a Democrat (his district leans Republican) and that leaves every chance that Independents will favour him in large numbers.

[Richard Allen]

Here is a truly astonishing story from Michigan.

Rep Thaddeus McCotter (R) has failed to make the primary ballot in the 11th CD because he failed to file the 1,000 valid nominating signatures that were required. He actually submitted over 2,000 signatures but all bar 244 were rejected. It seems that several pages of signatures had been photocopied and submitted at least twice. McCotter will now run as a write in candidate.

www.detroitnews.com/article/20120529/POLITICS01/205290388#ixzz1wHWXJjRE

[iainbhx]

May 29, 2012 18:53:00 GMT Richard Allen said:

Here is a truly astonishing story from Michigan.

Rep Thaddeus McCotter (R) has failed to make the primary ballot in the 11th CD because he failed to file the 1,000 valid nominating signatures that were required. He actually submitted over 2,000 signatures but all bar 244 were rejected. It seems that several pages of signatures had been photocopied and submitted at least twice. McCotter will now run as a write in candidate.

www.detroitnews.com/article/20120529/POLITICS01/205290388#ixzz1wHWXJjRE

McCotter has always had ambitions above his abilities. See his failed Presidential and Senate runs for details.

[iainbhx]

McCotter has now given up his write-in campaign.