On Salon.Com, someone posted a letter to the editor, using the pseudonym of Owen Meany, a character from a John Irving novel.

Here is what was said on Salon.com.

Read more – I have an idea

Soon, the Republican National Committee will vote to select a new Chairman for the RNC. Michael Steele is, at least for the moment, still in the running. We are convinced that we must have a solid conservative take over the RNC. We must rescue the RNC and the party from those who would make this party Socialist-lite. We have come to the conclusion the best person to be chair of the RNC is Sarah Palin.

Read more – Sarah Palin for Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

An article in today’s Politico discusses Governor Palin’s efforts to help elect Republican candidates across the country.

I get a lot of calls/questions about Governor Palin since the 2010 SRLC, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to make a quick comment.

As most of you know the 2010 SRLC was the largest Republican Leadership Conference in over 30 years – with more speakers, more press and more attendees than ever before.

I interacted with every major GOP personality in the country leading up to the conference and can tell you first hand that the only thing different about Governor Palin was the intensity of the interest from the attendees, sponsors and even other speakers.

Governor Palin’s staff was incredibly easy to deal with and very professional.

She’s easily the most requested surrogate our party has and it’s a shame that Republicans would rather gripe that they can’t get more of her time instead of being appreciative of everything that she does do.

Charlie Davis
President and CEO
2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference

Deputy Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana

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First, in a massive shocker a Public Policy Polling release today indicates that John Raese is now ahead of Joe Manchin in the West Virginia Senate race. It’s a small lead, just 46-43, and Manchin remains extremely popular as that state’s governor (59-32 approval spread). But West Virginians are absolutely livid with the Obama administration and national Democrats in general. By a 64-30 margin the president is disapproved of on the country roads – a figure even more demonstrative than the Magellan Strategies poll on the Louisiana Senate race found over the weekend.

A caveat - Rasmussen also polled the race and found Manchin ahead of Raese 50-43, so the PPP trend might well be an outlier.

The PPP West Virginia numbers on Obama reflect a general disgust with Obama nationwide, as Rasmussen’s approval index now stands at minus-19. More, Rasmussen finds that the Democrats’ favorite solution for gaining political advantage – namely, government giveaways – is a dead strategy. By a 43-22 margin, more people think government programs increase poverty than prevent it. And by a 52-40 margin, more Americans now say that Sarah Palin represents their views than Obama does. And 61 percent say they favor repeal of Obamacare.

All of these factors combine to show a ten point advantage for the GOP on the generic Congressional ballot, as Rasmussen has that number at 48-38.

But the GOP’s rise appears to be in spite of its establishment, which remains as or more unpopular as the Democrats. So it should be little surprise that in Alaska, where Tea Party insurgent Joe Miller beat establishment Republican Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary only to see Murkowski rise again as a futile write-in candidate last week, a three-way race isn’t a problem for Miller at all. He leads Murkowski and Democrat Scott McAdams by a 42-27-25 margin, which would point to a very comfortable victory for the accomplished Chuck Norris doppleganger.

In California, Rasmussen has Carly Fiorina back on top of Barbara Boxer, this time with a 48-47 lead. A Fox News poll has Boxer up 47-46, though. The thing to remember about Fiorina, however, is that in the GOP primary she turned out an enormous amount of voters and blew away all the projections based on polling – so if she’s within the margin of error against Boxer it’s a reasonable guess that she’ll win comfortably based on her get-out-the-vote efforts.

Fox News also has Sharron Angle leading Harry Reid by a 46-45 margin, which seems consistent with all recent polling in the Nevada Senate race. The race is neck-and-neck despite Reid having spent $11.6 million to date. He still has over $8 million left to spend, though it’s hard to say what else he can do to boost his numbers. Angle is at least even with Reid despite only spending $1.8 million; she has $1.8 million left. Third-party spending in the race has been substantial, most in Angle’s favor. It’s expected that will continue.

PPP also has a massive blast out in the Wisconsin Senate race. The firm says Republican Ron Johnson now has a gigantic 11-point lead over incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold, 52-41. Coming on the heels of a seven-point lead Johnson held last week, a definitive trend exists in that race.

And the first polling of the New York Senate race between the hot Kirsten Gillibrand and her Republican challenger Joseph Dio Guardia shows Gillibrand only ahead by a 49-39 number. Various pundits have said this is a winnable race for the GOP if DioGuardia can get funded; so far that’s a problem – he has $843,000 in cash on hand out of some $1.1 million he’s raised, while Gillibrand has $4.5 million out of $11.3 million she’s raised. Dick Morris has insisted that Gillibrand can be beaten, particularly in light of her role as special counsel to then-HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo during the Clinton administration when the seeds for the housing crisis were sown. It was Cuomo’s HUD which helped force open the door to risky lending by the nation’s banks, and to date this issue has not been exploited against her. That might change by Election Day.

The only trend which seems negative at present is the Delaware race. Fox News has a poll out which has Chris Coons ahead of Christine O’Donnell by a 54-39 margin, while Rasmussen says it’s a 53-42 number.

In response to these trends, we see two thrusts by the Democrats – which Morris claims prove the party has no strategy for weathering the coming electoral storm this fall.

The first idea was reported in the New York Times yesterday – namely, that the Obama administration and its acolytes would unleash a fresh round of attacks on the Tea Party movement in an effort to marginalize Tea Partiers among the center. In other words, more of the same tactics which have failed so miserably since April of 2009. Expect to see more epithets like racist, homophobe, Islamophobe and so on as the political currency of the administration.

The second idea for Democrats is even more unfortunate. It involves intimidation, sleaze and even voter fraud. To wit…

- Yesterday, Louisiana Democrat Senate candidate Charlie Melancon gave out Sen. David Vitter’s personal cell phone number at a media gathering amid a torrent of attacks on Vitter’s personal and political record.

- In a shocking move they later termed an “oversight,” the Florida Democrat Party released Republican House candidate Allen West’s social security number in a campaign flier on behalf of and in concert with incumbent Democrat Ron Klein’s current campaign attacking West for having had an $11,000 tax lien on his house in 2005. West paid off the lien within four months; he might end up more than $11,000 in the hole thanks to the potential identity theft the Democrats have exposed him to.

When West cried foul over the disclosure, which is not only illegal but also raises questions about how the party was able to get that information, this was the “apology” he got from Florida Democrat Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff (yes, we know, and it’s not necessary to crack wise about his name):

“After making every effort to remove all of Allen West’s private information, unlike West who refuses to apologize to Florida’s taxpayers for not paying his taxes and his bills, we apologize for the oversight of not redacting this information from the public record included in the mailer,” Jotkoff said. “To end, while this mail piece does not explicitly identify any Social Security number, in order to stop the crazy West accusations, we will pay for identify theft monitoring for the next two years.”

- In another example of the curiously prevalent information available to Democrats and the Obama administration, on three separate recent occasions the president and/or his aides have mentioned Koch Industries, a large privately-held firm with large-scale involvement in conservative and Tea Party causes, while disclosing information on the company’s tax records which could have been illegally obtained.

- And then there’s the case of attempts at large-scale voter fraud in Houston, thankfully smoked out by Harris County Assessor Leo Vasquez after a batch of 25,000 voter registration forms sent in by a left-wing organization called Texans Together (funded by plaintiff lawyers) included thousands of  ”disturbing irregularities, including addresses that didn’t exist, non-citizens seeking to register, and cases where up to six applications were submitted for the same person.”

Needless to say, Morris’ point is well-taken in that the above do not constitute a viable electoral strategy on the part of the Democrats. And the polls indicate that the current trend may consolidate and come ashore unabated on Nov. 2.

The most watched race tonight was the Senate Republican primary in Delaware. Marketing consultant Christine O’Donnell upset Rep. Mike Castle (a moderate former governor who sought promotion to the Senate after 18 years in the House) with 53% of the vote.

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 John is a political consultant and blogger with JMC Enterprises with expertise in poll sample development and analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy and demographic consulting, among other things. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.

O’Donnell has been hammered by the GOP establishment in the past month, just as her campaign has eclipsed Castle’s and for the first time she has taken a small lead in the polls. There has been enough dirt on the insurgent candidate spread of late to fill in the Grand Canyon, and if you’re looking for an argument why she’s unworthy of support it’s not hard to find one. O’Donnell isn’t cut from the Carly Fiorina-Linda McMahon cloth, whereby she made millions as a businesswoman and demonstrated a keen ability for management or entrepreneurship. O’Donnell isn’t even a Sharron Angle, who made a reputation as a hard-core principled state legislator even if that meant lots of local politicos disparaged her for being an extremist.

O’Donnell is more your regular-Joe. She doesn’t have an impressive bio at all; in a more Republican-friendly state than Delaware she’d probably have won a small race or two and moved up from county commissioner to state senator, but instead she’s been something of a serial candidate and a performer of odd jobs in marketing and public relations. She only recently finished her college degree and it appears she’s embellished her accomplishments – though she hasn’t claimed to have fought in Vietnam or held herself out as a law professor – on her campaign bio.

Allen West or Rob Portman, she’s not. I get that. In a larger state than Delaware, with a healthier Republican Party, she wouldn’t have a chance at an office this high.

But, as Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, among others, have noticed, O’Donnell is an actual conservative. She ran for Senate in Delaware as a real conservative in 2008, when it was supposedly poisonous to do so, and got clobbered in the process. And while she’s an unimpressive individual, unimpressive individuals in the Senate are the rule rather than the exception. The difference is that O’Donnell is an unimpressive individual who isn’t connected to the Ivy League-Wall Street ruling class like, for example, Kristin Gillibrand or Chris Dodd are.

Meanwhile, on the Establishment side of this divide we have Mike Castle, an entrenched incumbent politician who has been Delaware’s only congressman for nine terms (that’s 18 years) and was the state’s governor at one time. Castle is 70 years old and his voting record is absolutely noxious to conservatives. He styles himself a moderate, which would be an accurate description if your definition of a moderate politician would encompass Ron Wyden or Mary Landrieu. Castle is, in fact, the most left-wing Republican in the House of Representatives; he’s the very definition of a RINO.

How bad is Castle? Well, via Michelle Malkin let’s take a look at his record on energy for example:

 * Voted YES on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (Jun 2009)
* Voted YES on tax credits for renewable electricity, with PAYGO offsets. (Sep 2008)
* Voted YES on tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (May 2008)
* Voted YES on tax incentives for renewable energy. (Feb 2008)
* Voted YES on investing in homegrown biofuel. (Aug 2007)
* Voted YES on criminalizing oil cartels like OPEC. (May 2007)
* Voted YES on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jan 2007)
* Voted YES on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore. (Jun 2006)
* Voted YES on scheduling permitting for new oil refinieries. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on authorizing construction of new oil refineries. (Oct 2005)
* Voted NO on passage of the Bush Administration national energy policy. (Jun 2004)
* Voted NO on implementing Bush-Cheney national energy policy. (Nov 2003)
* Voted NO on raising CAFE standards; incentives for alternative fuels. (Aug 2001)
* Voted YES on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR. (Aug 2001)
* Voted YES on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000)
* Establish greenhouse gas tradeable allowances. (Feb 2005)
* Rated 33% by CAF, indicating a mixed record on energy independence. (Dec 2006)
* Sign on to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Jan 2007)
* Supports immediate reductions in greenhouse gases. (Sep 1998)

That’s not a moderate voting record. That’s a left-wing nightmare of a voting record.

Castle also voted for the DISCLOSE Act, TARP, that $26 billion greasing of the teachers’ unions a couple weeks ago and Cap and Trade. He’s got a lifetime near-100 percent rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood. The National Rifle Association has given him an “F” rating since the early 1990′s. The Club For Growth gave Castle a 43 percent rating in 2009, which was a high-water mark in recent years (and a product of increased party discipline with a smaller GOP caucus) after ratings of 35 and 26 in 2007 and 2008. In fact, when Castle earned a 26 in 2008 from the Club For Growth, Arlen Specter earned a 44.

As Limbaugh, Dan Riehl and Erick Erickson have both noted, GOP majorities peppered by Mike Castles are majorities in name alone. You can’t make policy with a Mike Castle in your camp, because you will either have to continually bribe him with pork and thus sabotage your credibility with the American people or you will watch him fight against you. Such a majority merely makes the Republicans responsible for policy and presents the Obama administration with an even more inviting target for demonization (the distinctly uncharismatic and boring Mitch McConnell) than their past and present bogeymen Limbaugh, George W. Bush and now John Boehner. With a Castle teaming with Lindsey Graham, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and (probably) John McCain, the GOP will be credited with 51 votes when they’ve actually got 46. There is no difference between the two other than having the responsibility for setting the agenda.

On the other hand, if Angle manages to knock off Harry Reid (she leads by one point in the latest poll), the Republicans might be in the minority in a Chuck Schumer-led Senate. This is electoral gold in 2012, when the vast majority of the seats up for re-election will be Democrat seats. When the country gets a look at Schumer’s leadership they’ll recoil in a similar fashion to what we’ve seen with Reid, if not more so.

This assumes the Delaware race will make the difference between 50 and 51 seats, when it’s probably more likely to make the difference between 48 and 49, or 51 and 52. In other words, it’s by no means proven that the nomination decided tonight will hold the GOP Senate majority’s fate.

All thanks to a cracker with a goofy moustache and a pair of boulders in his pants.

In case you missed the day’s events with the Dove World Outreach Center’s plan to burn Korans on Saturday as a memoriam to the 9/11 attacks nine years ago, plenty happened.

First, as we posted earlier today, pastor Terry Jones has been promoting the publicity stunt for a week in order to boost attention and membership of his 50-strong congregation in Gainesville, Florida – and in doing so making himself a household name worldwide overnight. Jones is being discussed by everyone – Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gibbs, Robert Gates (who personally called Jones today to plead with him not to go through with his plan), David Petraeus, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck being just some of the hifalutin personages drawn to Jones’ idea. Of course, EVERYONE has counseled, cajoled and begged Jones not to go through with his little bonfire.

The problem is, Jones’ plan isn’t unfolding in a vacuum. He happens to be taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cause important people to reach for the Pepto-Bismol.

See, while Jones is gaining his 15 minutes of fame all hell is breaking loose in New York surrounding the Ground Zero mosque.

Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam of that mosque, has returned from a two-month government-funded junket to the Middle East that everyone swears wasn’t a fundraising trip for his Cordoba House project. He immediately took to the CNN airwaves and said that if he’d known what a poopstorm (my word, not his) this thing would turn into he wouldn’t have pushed the project but that if he agreed to back down now he’d be risking attacks on America’s national security by “radicals” and “extremists.” This, of course, sounds like blackmail to the ears of the 70 percent of the country who hold Rauf’s project in disdain, and it’s the talk around every water cooler in America.

But earlier this week the primary investor in the building Rauf’s mosque is supposed to occupy, an Egyptian-American named Hisham Elzanaty, said he was really just in it for the money and if somebody was willing to buy him out he’d be happy to walk away.

So today, Donald Trump bit. Trump sent a letter to Elzanaty offering him a 25 percent bump on his investment (some $4.85 million, apparently, making Trump’s offer somewhere around $6.5 million) as a buyout price. But with breathtaking speed Elzanaty turned Trump down flat, saying through his lawyer that if Trump didn’t come to the table with at least $20 million he was wasting his time. It will be interesting in the next few days to see whether Trump – who could drop off $20 million to Elzanaty out of the spare change from his chest of drawers – takes the Egyptian up on his number. And even more interesting to see, if Elzanaty continues to look this gift horse in the mouth, what public perception of his statements would then result.

Amid this, Jones was approached today - either before or after Gates called him to plead for the survival of the pastor’s stash of Korans – by Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, with an offer to intercede in the kerfuffle. Jones represented, with Musri standing next to him at a presser outside the Dove World Outreach Center, that the Orlando imam had guaranteed Jones the Cordoba House mosque would be built elsewhere. As such, said Jones, he was suspending his bonfire so as to travel to New York to meet with Rauf on Saturday.

Musri qualified his remarks after Jones’ speech, saying he merely offered to set up a meeting with Rauf.

With the situation thus understood, the Fox News All-Star panel discussed it like this…

But Rauf, perhaps taken by surprise, threw cold water all over the concept. He put out a statement…

“I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Korans,” Rauf said. “However, I have not spoken with Pastor Jones or Imam Musri. I am surprised by their announcement.”

“We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we here to barter. We are here to extend our hand to build peace and harmony,” he said.

Jones was a bit miffed at all this, as one might imagine, since he looks like an even bigger doofus for today’s events having happened than he did before. And as a result, after first expressing how hurt he was that it appeared Musri had overpromised he then veered into a position just as inflexible as Rauf’s – namely, that his bonfire was back on. He said that Musri “clearly, clearly lied to us” – after having previously noted that there were several witnesses in the room when Musri supposedly guaranteed the mosque would be moved.

Meanwhile, into the fray stepped the notorious Fred Phelps, leader of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church congregation known for picketing military funerals and creating a First Amendment conundrum of their own. Phelps happily volunteered to torch a few Korans himself if Jones’ feet got cold. In a news release, Phelps’ church said…

“WBC burned the Koran once – and if you sissy brats of Doomed america bully Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center until they change their plans to burn that blasphemous tripe called the Koran, then WBC will burn it (again), to clearly show you some things.”

Chauceresque prose aside, the WBC release indicated how badly out of control the entire situation has spread for the administration and the rest of America’s ruling class. Several things appear at hand at this point.

First, Jones may be a bumbling rustic far over his head. That said, he has stumbled into a situation which threatens to unravel the entire narrative put forth by the Washington-New York ruling class on Islam, religion and the First Amendment. While that sounds a bit vast, consider that the difference between what Jones proposes to do and Rauf’s mosque is essentially semantic. Both have a constitutional right to do as they propose, both projects are thoroughly insensitive to those affected, both are unwise to proceed with their plans based on the feedback they’ve already received and both will inflame the conflict between Muslims and Western Civilization.

And then consider the differing treatment each has received. In Rauf’s case, our president and his acolytes had nothing to say about his mosque other than it was his constitutional right to build it. This despite better than two-thirds of the American public who agree on the constitutional issue and nevertheless oppose the decision for Rauf to build his mosque. But in Jones’ case, the same powerful people who don’t oppose the mosque are pleading for Jones to desist. That they’re joined by people like Palin, Beck, Mitt Romney and others is interesting, but not dispositive; conservative opposition to Jones’ bonfire is based on the same preference for civility and public harmony that informs opposition to the Ground Zero mosque.

Jones has now exposed this double standard in technicolor. Is it proper for Americans of Christian persuasion to hold themselves to a higher standard? Perhaps, but after years of such treatment the patience of the average citizen has worn thin. Jones won’t say it, but he clearly sees a path to stardom of sorts by taking on the role of the radical Christian who acts just like the unhinged Islamic clerics so prevalent in the Muslim world. By creating this equivalence, he exploits the same free-speech construct so obsequiously slathered on Muslims by the Left – with none of the same results.

Jones isn’t likely to gain sympathy from the public, who won’t likely appreciate his rocking the boat and stirring up anti-American animals from Casablanca to Jakarta and elsewhere, but he doesn’t need popularity to achieve fame or to embarrass his politically correct betters.

And if Jones’ situation is a nightmare for the White House and the media elites, what of Phelps? The American people have been routinely outraged by Westboro Baptist’s congregation harrassing the families of fallen military personnel, only to be told by our ruling class that the freedom of speech is absolute, Phelps must be borne and we should have thicker skin than to be worked up by the ravings of lunatics – regardless of how offensive their antics may be.

Does that formula still apply when Phelps is roasting Korans rather than berating the bereaved? Does anyone want to attempt to explain to Phelps that burning Korans threatens the American military personnel whose funerals he pickets?

It’s a shame Heath Ledger has passed on. His brilliant portrayal of The Joker has come to life in the persons of Jones and Phelps.

As it seems impossible to prevent Jones – or Phelps – from burning Korans on Saturday using reasoned argument, how will they be induced not to do so? Will our tax dollars be involved in placating them? Should the rest of us get in on the action? Will the grounds of Dove World Outreach Center be teeming with enemies – like the New Black Panthers, who swear they will prevent him from acting – on Saturday? Will there be violence? And if so, what will the consequences be? Will Jones be arrested for inciting a riot? How will the resulting Trial Of The Century play out? One envisions a Ron Kuby/William Kunstler type taking on the case and turning it into a sensation.

And if the Muslim world breaks out into violence a la the Danish Cartoon disaster, what then? How will the American people react to the Ground Zero mosque in the wake of Muslim attacks on American embassies and other targets over some rube in the piney woods burning a book or two? And what reaction to the ruling class continuing to excuse Muslim barbarity while blaming Jones for provoking the animals?

Jones has another course available to him, of course. He could choose not to burn the Koran. That obviously would be the polite thing to do. But he’s already said that the entire purpose of the exercise is to show defiance to Islam as a response to 9/11; with those stakes having been posted and with his having tied his bonfire to the moving of the Ground Zero mosque not achieving the promised results, what consideration might he extract in turn in order to save face?

The obvious, of course, would be for Rauf – who styles himself an interfaith healer – to take a meeting with Jones on Saturday in order to at least keep him from burning Korans in Gainesville that day. Even if Rauf has no intention of negotiating on the location of the mosque, a meeting alone might serve to placate Jones. So far, he has refused. What effect to his credibility from that refusal? Has the urbane, well-connected and patrician Rauf nothing to offer to the primitive pastor from the fever swamp in the name of brotherhood and peace? Does he fear the wrath of the Muslim street for agreeing to make a deal of some sort with Jones? And if so, what does that say about the practitioners of Islam the rest of us are expected to accomodate?

Again, how will the American people process these permutations? And what will we expect from our leaders – and in particular, our President, whose statement on Jones’ bonfire was far more urgent and considerably stronger than he offered on Rauf’s mosque:

“I just hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values,” Obama said in the ABC interview. “I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.”

I don’t suppose a Beer Summit is in the offing, and I suspect a Tea Party between Obama, Rauf and Jones is somewhat unlikely. If the president were to bring Jones to the White House for any purpose disaster seems the only likely result. But inaction as this controversy morphs from amusing spectacle to dangerous conflict will only indict Obama’s leadership and drain much of what’s left of his current approval – with consequences in November. Heavy-handed action against Jones as the president seeks to diffuse Muslim anger while the Ground Zero mosque project continues apace will serve Obama little better with the average American whose patience for the president’s coddling Muslims (one in five of us already thinks Obama is a Muslim anyway) is now theadbare.

Commentators have for years identified the refusal of the ruling class to recognize the inherent incompatibility of Islam with Western civilization as an unsustainable, politically correct kabuki. It is perhaps fitting, then, that a politically incorrect, obscure flyover-territory eccentric styling himself a devout Christian might be the instrument to bring those carefully crafted delusions to an end.

(1) For the first time in years, the Republican base (with TEA Partiers providing the psychic energy) is fired up and is holding its incumbents more accountable for their voting records, particularly if they differ from the limited government philosophy once espoused by Ronald Reagan;

(2) This increased scrutiny of Republicans takes several forms. The most obvious form is the primary defeats of four Republican incumbents (Sen Robert Bennett in Utah, Sen Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Rep Parker Griffith in Alabama, and Rep Bob Inglis in South Carolina). This scrutiny also takes the form of support of more conservative candidates (Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Sharron Angle in Nevada) over the “safer” choices favored by the local and Washington party establishments. Finally, current/former incumbents seeking promotion to another office (Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas, Charlie Crist in Florida, Ron Simmons in Connecticut, Pete Hoekstra in Michigan, and Gresham Barrett in South Carolina) have found that their “old” voting record matters to primary voters, especially if they supported TARP. Finally, an energized party base has created competitive races for incumbents like Lynn Jenkins in Kansas, Fred Upton in Michigan, and Mark Souder in Indiana if they were perceived as having “gone Washington”;

(3) Republican primary voters were much more critical of their incumbents, but there were casualties on the Democratic side as well, as Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Alan Mollohan of West Virginia found out the hard way, despite their decades of seniority;

(4) A natural by-product of these contested Republican primaries is a spike in Republican primary voting. In the 28 states that have held competitive statewide primaries on both sides of the aisle so far, 55% (or 13.8 million) have voted in a Republican primary, while 11.4 million have voted in the Democratic primary. A similar dynamic was in play in 2008, when Democratic enthusiasm in contested primaries foretold the Democratic sweep that November;

(5) So far, attempts by labor and progressive activists to defeat Democratic incumbents perceived to be too conservative (a “no” vote on healthcare reform was generally the “red flag” item) have uniformly failed, and, curiously, have not gotten much support from the Democratic establishment;

(6) Rhetoric suggesting that “angry white males” are driving Republican efforts does not reflect reality. Hispanic and Asian candidates have been nominated for a multitude of offices in places like Washington, New Mexico, and South Carolina. And this year, a record 36 black Republicans have sought election to Congress. Of this group, 13 have been nominated so far, and we believe that three candidates (Tim Scott of South Carolina, Ryan Frazier of Colorado, and Allen West of Florida) have a good chance of getting elected. We are also keeping an eye on Bill Marcy in Mississippi, who is running in the Delta with Tea Party support;

(7) Even if all incumbents were somehow re-elected, the next Congress will have at least 59 new members from primary defeats and retirements alone. This volume of primary defeats/retirements has only been exceeded three times in recent memory: 61 in 1994, 66 in 1996, and 85 in 1992. If, however, a strong Republican wave materializes as expected, there will be numerous Democratic retirements in advance of the 2012 elections, in addition to those incumbents defeated in November. In fact, in the wake of the 1994 GOP landslide, 37 Democratic incumbents called it quits;

Looking forward, there are eight more primaries which will be held next week. Seven of those (Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) will be held on “Super Tuesday II” on September 14. Hawaii’s primary will be held on Saturday, September 18. We are watching the following races:

Delaware – There were several states where the Republican establishment recruited candidates to run for open Senate seats with the belief that their moderate demeanor/views on the issues made them more electable. This argument has not carried any weight with conservative/TEA Party activists who have flocked to the polls this year to support more conservative candidates. In Delaware, 18 year House incumbent (and former Governor) Mike Castle has a moderate voting record (he supported “cap and trade”) to defend against marketing consultant Christine O’Donnell, who has recently engaged the interest of the TEA Party Express who, in the wake of the shocking upset of incumbent Lisa Murkowski, wants the scalp of another RINO (Republican In Name Only). Polls currently show Castle with a narrowing lead against the likely Democratic nominee, while O’Donnell currently trails the Democrat;

Massachusetts – We had noted above that in several House races, labor/progressive groups sought revenge against incumbents who voted against healthcare reform. A final “test case” of their desire for vengeance is in a House district in Boston and its southern suburbs, where nine year incumbent Steve Lynch  faces a challenge from  Mac D’Alessandro, New England Political Director of SEIU. There is also a contested GOP House primary in an open House seat race where Scott Brown and Mitt Romney have both thrown their weight behind state representative Jeff Perry, who utilizes a “three part system of voting” for any legislation.

New Hampshire – This is another race where the preferred candidate of the GOP Senate Campaign Committee faces a competitive primary. However, the “establishment versus insurgent” narrative isn’t entirely accurate here, as the “establishment” candidate, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, has Sarah Palin’s endorsement. She is competing against three other major opponents, one of whom (Ovide Lamontagne) claims the endorsement of the state’s main (and conservative) newspaper.

New York – Charlie Rangel’s ethical problems couldn’t come at a worse time for him, as the 40 year incumbent fights for his political life against the son of the person (Adam Clayton Powell) Rangel defeated in 1970.

John is a political consultant and blogger with JMC Enterprises with expertise in poll sample development and analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy and demographic consulting, among other things. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.

In  Florida, the Senate race that we’ve anticipated for some time (a three way race between former House Speaker Marco Rubio, black Miami Congressman Kendrick Meek, and Governor Charlie Crist) is now official. Though Meek received spirited competition from billionaire Jeff Greene, numerous aspects about Greene’s background left him vulnerable to attack ads. His financial dealings left him vulnerable to the attack that he “bet on and benefitted from the housing collapse” His yacht was also the subject of considerable scrutiny. At one point, Greene was alleged to have used it to travel to Cuba in defiance of the travel ban (thus offending Cuban Democrats in Miami). There were also allegations of the yacht’s anchor being dropped onto a  UN recognized, environmentally protected coral reef and destroying it. Though outspent, Meek had the support of former President Clinton and (officially, at least) President Obama, and easily won the Democratic Senate primary 57-31%.

Despite the viciousness of this primary, we believe (as we mentioned several months ago in this post ) that having a Democratic nominee selected will start the process of Democrats’ migrating back to their candidate. This predicted Democratic migration will cause the independent candidacy of Governor Charlie Crist to collapse. Right now, his electoral position is deceptively strong because of his having a considerable amount of white and black Democratic support. Without that support, he has nowhere to go electorally, since the GOP vote has been locked up by Rubio for some time now.

Florida Republicans had their own vicious primary campaign, although in this case, healthcare executive and multimillionaire Rick Scott (whose campaign tagline is “let’s get to work”) narrowly defeated Republican establishment favorite, Attorney General and 10 term former Congressman Bill McCollum by a 46-43% margin in the GOP primary for Governor. In this race, the controversy was that Scott’s former company (Columbia/HCA) had to pay the federal government a sizeable $1.7 billion dollars in fines for Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  While the Governor’s race has been set, the likely outcome is up in the air at this point because, like the Senate race, there will be a three way race between Scott, Democratic CFO (which is a statewide elected position in Florida) Alex Sink, and Independent “Bud” Chiles, whose father was Senator then Governor for nearly three decades. The big question about this race is whether the Republicans can unite behind their nominee like the Democrats have with theirs.

One House race we were watching in Florida for strength of liberal anger was a Democratic House primary in north Florida, in a district that is a mixture of rural counties, conservative beach areas, and liberal Tallahassee. Though this district voted 55% for John McCain, it re-elected Blue Dog Allen Boyd for 14 years with little fuss. However, Tallahassee liberals have been unhappy with his voting record for some time (despite the fact that Rep Boyd voted for “cap and trade” and for healthcare reform), and black state senator Al Lawson challenged him in the primary. Though Rep Boyd outspent Sen. Lawson 11 to 1, he narrowly survived the primary with 52% to Lawson’s 48%. He can’t rest easy, though - the Republicans are putting up a stiff challenge to Rep Boyd in November.

We have been tracking the level of GOP enthusiasm in contested statewide primaries, and Florida was yet another state where there was more enthusiasm on the GOP side of the primary ballot; in this case, 58% of its voters voted in the Republican primary, despite the fact that Democrats lead 41-36% in voter registration.

(UPDATED 8/25 AM) In Arizona, the main story is that despite a stiff challenge from the right by former Congressman J.D. Hayworth, John McCain comfortably won his primary 56-32%. In our view, McCain was only vulnerable in theory, as his voting record (as well as his public statements) took an unambiguous turn to the right after President Obama was inaugurated. Senator McCain was also able to gain additional traction by noting Hayworth’s connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Most damaging, in our opinion, was an infomercial Hayworth once did promoting “free money” from the government, because anything smacking of bailouts is extremely unpopular with Republican primary voters this year, and that association is especially damning for conservative candidates.

Like Florida, Arizona was another state where voter enthusiasm was clearly on the Republican side. In this case, 67% of primary voters voted in the Republican primary, despite a narrow 36-32% Republican registration advantage in the state.

(UPDATED 8/25 AM) A final note on Arizona: the state’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, was universally given up for dead last year when she increased taxes. Her standing up to the federal government on immigration, however, brought her back to life with a vengeance earlier this year and made her somewhat of a rock star in conservative circles. And, accordingly, she won her primary with 87% of the vote against two opponents.

(UPDATED 9/4) In Alaska, a third Senate (and a seventh Congressional) incumbent has been defeated in the primary. With only a handful of absentees to be counted, freshman Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski trailed in the Republican primary 49-51% against attorney Joe Miller, who was endorsed by Tea Partiers and by Sarah Palin. Senator Murkowski has always had electoral problems ever since her father, whose seat she filled when he was elected governor in 2002, appointed her to his seat. Since then, her pork barrel tendencies and her pro choice stance on abortion have upset many Republicans.

(UPDATED 8/25 AM) Like Florida and Arizona, Alaska was yet another state where voter enthusiasm was clearly on the Republican side. In this case, 70% of primary voters voted in the Republican primary, despite a narrow 26-15% Republican registration advantage in the state.

Once Alaska’s primary has concluded, we will be in the home stretch of primary season, as 41 states have now held their primaries. Primary season finally comes to Louisiana this Saturday, as it chooses party nominees for U.S. House and U.S. Senate races. This will be a closed primary, meaning that (1) only Republicans can vote in the Republican primary, (2) Democrats or Independents can vote in the Democratic primary,  and (3) if any candidate receives less than 50% of the vote, he/she will have to compete in a runoff on October 2. This election date coincides with various statewide and local primary races.

Also holding elections this Saturday will be West Virginia. It is conducting a special primary to fill the seat of the late Robert Byrd. The winners will face each other in the November general election. After the weekend primaries, there will be a plethora of primaries on Tuesday September 14, which we are dubbing “Super Tuesday II.” On that date, there will be contested primaries in Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. After “Super Tuesday II”, the last Congressional primary to be held will be in Hawaii on Saturday September 18.

 John is a political consultant and blogger with JMC Enterprises with expertise in poll sample development and analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy and demographic consulting, among other things. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.