What about the Democrats who won?
by digby
Here’s an interesting little factoid.
One trend that was interesting last night is that clear, strong progressives like Jeff Merkley (OR), Tom Udall (NM), Brian Schatz (HI) and Al Franken (MN)– who had massive right-wing money thrown at them– won, while conservative Democrats like Mark Warner, Mary Landrieu and Kay Hagan stumbled and the most conservative Democrat of all, Mark Pryor, lost badly. In the House, conservative Democrats– Blue Dogs and New Dems– lost everywhere, even in Democratic districts. Almost all of Israel’s Red-to-Blue recruits lost, as did many of his Frontline incumbents.
Schatz is no surprise being from Blue Hawaii. And Oregon went even more blue all around (although that wasn’t destined to be true — it wasn’t that long ago that they had GOP Senators.) But both Franken and Udall pulled it out in states that are not reliably liberal. What happened in these races that didn’t happen elsewhere? The right certainly gave it their all to unseat them.
And as Howie points out, all those Republicans in Democratic clothing the Party recruited lost as did all the Blue Dogs who’ve been very reliable GOP votes. It just doesn’t pay to be a conservative Democrat these days.
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