My thoughts on the May 18th primary results

   Tonight I am watching the results of the most important elections, up to this date, heading into the mid-term elections. There are three races that I am particularly interested in; Pennsylvania’s Democrat senatorial race between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak, Kentucky’s Republican senatorial race between Rand Paul and Trey Grayson, and the Arkansas senatorial race between Blanche Lincoln, Bill Halter, and DC Morrison.

  I am going to write about these races in the order that the results come in.

  The first election results are in and Rand Paul has won the Kentucky Republican primary, defeating Trey Grayson by a 59-36% margin with almost all of the precincts reporting.

  This is a victory for the Tea Party movement over the Republican establishment and should serve notice to all Republicans that they had better be on their guard. Rand Paul was endorsed by the Tea Party and ran a campaign against the establishment. Trey Grayson was basically the Kentucky Republican establishment’s hand picked candidate, he had the backing of the state Republican party, but yet the Tea Party managed to pull off this victory. But this was more than just a victory, this was a route. This race was never even close.

  Rand Paul summed up this victory thusly:

I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back

  Bravo! While the Tea Party is portrayed in the media as right wing– and while I concede that most members of the Tea Party are right wingers– there is more to the movement than that. We are sick and tired of politics as usual in Washington, we do not care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you do not listen to the will of the people you will be voted out. This should be a shot across the bow and a wake up call to Republicans who feel that they will ride an anti-Democrat wave back into power.

  The Pennsylvania Democrat primary is now being called and Joe Sestak has defeated Arlen Specter. I have to admit that I am relishing this result. Arlen Specter famously changed parties when he realized that he was probably not going to be able to win a Republican party only to lose the Democrat primary instead. Arlen Specter’s loss is extremely gratifying to me, he is a turncoat who showed himself to be nothing more than a political whore when he decided to change parties not because of his beliefs, but for selfish personal reasons.

  The Democrats are going to try to spin this loss as a victory by claiming that Arlen Specter wasn’t really a Democrat; they are going to claim that the true Democrat won the primary, and they have the candidate they want to run in the general election. But the truth is that Arlen Specter had the support of the national Democrat party and Barack Obama. The entire Democrat party  lined up behind their establishment candidate and he still lost.

  As I write this, Blanche Lincoln holds a one point lead over Bill Halter with DC Morrison trailing badly in the Arkansas primary. Lincoln has 43% of the vote and it appears unlikely that she will be able to get 50%. This means that there will probably be a runoff election.

  This is interesting because it appears as though Arkansas voters do not think that Lincoln is liberal enough. She has gained a reputation as being a moderate, and is facing a challenge from the left.

  All in all it looks to have been a good night for those of us who feel that the government is no longer listening to the will of the people. It is time for both the Republican and Democrat parties to start paying attention to the people they are supposed to represent, because we are paying attention to you.