About Last Night

by digby

Blue America went one and one in last night’s primary runoffs, with Elaine Marshall in North Carolina defeating the handpicked beltway corporate Democrat. Howie writes:

The biggie, for the Democratic nomination to race extremist Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), was won– and very decisively, by Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, the grassroots populist heavily backed by… well, basically by everyone but the DSCC. Bob Menendez, continuing his losing record, personally recruited some guy named Cal Cunningham– idea being that North Carolina isn’t “ready” for two women senators. North Carolinians didn’t agree and the $300,000 plus massive support from DC insiders didn’t save Cunningham from an electoral thrashing. He was trounced 60- 40% in a runoff that saw Ken Lewis’ primary voters follow Lewis straight into Marshall’s camp. Score one– one big one– for the good guys.

Elaine wrote a nice post this morning on Daily Kos thanking her netroots supporters, including Blue America.

Claudia Wright the longshot grassroots primary challenger in Utah came up short but her candidacy had a salutary effect, as they often do:

Claudia’s feisty challenge saw Matheson voting with Democrats on issues– like abolishing DADT– that would have been unthinkable without a vigorous primary. We consider the ads Blue America ran this past week in the St. George area to be the least we could do for a stalwart Democrat taking on such a thankless and odious task. Her first try for public office, Claudia wound up with around a third of the vote.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to both campaigns. Every time a progressive challenger wages a primary campaign, a few new progressives in their districts and states get their wings. And as Barney Frank said, the best way for grassroots citizens to influence congress is to wage primaries because there’s nothing a politician hates more than having to wage an election campaign. It’s good for them and as we’ve seen repeatedly, even when they win, they are often chastened and changed by the experience.