Another incumbent loses in the primary - West Virginia Mollohan

[Vette73]

Voters sweep another lawmaker out of office
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/12/voters-sweep-another-lawmaker-out-of-office/

Yep, another longterm congressman loses a primary. I actually like seeing things like this. I hate that once elected it’s almost impossible to lose the seat.

In the grand picture I don’t think it will matter much but shows at least some are now paying attention.

 

[nonlnear]

West Virginia is a one party state. You can't think of anything that happens there in the same terms as the rest of the country. There may be chatter about this having to do with national trends, but there's a big clue in TFA right here:

Mollohan had been the focus of an investigation into whether he benefited financially from nonprofit organizations in his state. But the Justice Department informed Mollohan in January that no charges would be filed as a result of their investigation. At the time, the congressman described the questions about his ethics as "a politically-motivated assault on my character."

You see, the thing is the state of West Virginia doesn't have a functional Justice Department. Spike Maynard and Brent Benjamin are just the tip of the corruption iceberg in ol' WV. The legal profession in WV is rotten to its core, yes in a way that is fundamentally worse than possibly ecvery other state in the union. All the good legal students leave the state to go practice real law, and all the state is left with are the halfwits who know how to kiss ass and say "How high?"

Scandals happen everywhere. The difference between WV and the rest of the country is that when somebody like Elliot Spitzer is outed as having a couple issues, the fact that the knowledge is public forces somebody somewhere to do something about it. Sure things get swept under the rug as long as it's on the d/l, but when it's in the papers, somebody somewhere will stand up and at least try to do something about it. Not so in West Virginia. In West Virginia you could have the state flagship university retroactively issue a degree to the Governor's daughter Heather Bresch by fraudulently altering her transcripts to manufacture credits, in order to cover up Ms. Bresch's purjurious claims to the SEC that she held an eMBA, and not a single person in the university receive any kind of disciplinary action. It was all over the papers only because the Pittsburgh Post Gazette kept hammering away at the story. Even the West Virginia media is corrupt and/or incompetent.

Now this whole coal thing is just another episode in the saga of Don Blankenship's tyranny over the state. Joe Manchin has essentially made himself into Massey's press secretary after the recent disaster. I wonder why... Everybody "in the game" in West Virginia is shitting themselves with glee over the Louisiana oil leak because finally West Virginia is out of the national fossil fuel disaster spotlight and they can get on with sweeping it under the rug like they always do.

Anyways all that was just a bit of backstory to say that Mollohan losing probably has nothing to do with anything national. West Virginia is the very definition of a political backwater in that absolutely nothing flows in. You can't take anything that happens inside West Virginia as having anything at all to do with national trends - except the whole obesity thing I guess!

 

[Vette73]

^

Well seeing as others, even a current senator, has lost a primary; I think there is a trend. I posted this as another one bites the dust before it gets to the general election point.

Before this it was 2 republicans I know that lost/dropped primary races. Now this is a Dem. And I like ti when long term people lose a primary. Shows soemthing is happening and even the people in your own party are getting out the vote to change.

 

[nonlnear]

Well seeing as others, even a current senator, has lost a primary; I think there is a trend. I posted this as another one bites the dust before it gets to the general election point.

Before this it was 2 republicans I know that lost/dropped primary races. Now this is a Dem. And I like ti when long term people lose a primary. Shows soemthing is happening and even the people in your own party are getting out the vote to change.

See this is the thing: there is no such thing as change in West Virginia. It's hard to understand unless you have lived there. It's not like the rest of the country. The entire state is bought and paid for by Don Blankenship, and to a lesser extent Milan Puskar. Elections are won or lost in the primaries, and primaries are lost by incumbents usually only when they lose their "blessed" status. The investigation that didn't result in any charges is probably a hint that some lobbyists did something they don't want to be uncovered. If the incumbent is no longer in office, there is no scandal and everyone can carry on their merry way...

There is an off chance that the allegations are actually a ploy by the WV bosses to oust him for the opposite reason (that Mollohan was opposing something that wasn't on the up and up), but either way my money is on this loss not having much to do with anything outside the borders of that horrible state.

 

[werepossum]

One big lesson in these primaries is that the challengers are running to the right of the incumbents. It's a conservative year, although the extent that this translates into Republican victories is yet to be seen. In most races a Republican and a Tea Partier splitting 60% of the vote means a Democrat in office and it remains to be seen whether the two groups can reconcile candidates.

One other thing about Mollohan - West Virginia is almost all anti-abortion, so his support for Obamacare hurt him even though it was an exclusively Democrat bill.

 

[Vette73]

One big lesson in these primaries is that the challengers are running to the right of the incumbents. It's a conservative year, although the extent that this translates into Republican victories is yet to be seen. In most races a Republican and a Tea Partier splitting 60% of the vote means a Democrat in office and it remains to be seen whether the two groups can reconcile candidates.

One other thing about Mollohan - West Virginia is almost all anti-abortion, so his support for Obamacare hurt him even though it was an exclusively Democrat bill.

Then explain Spector in PA. He may lose the primary as he is too conserative. The person running against him is saying I am a Dem hes not. :awe:

 

[Lemon law]

Three likely things to be said.

(1) Few voters can stomach a corrupt candidate. Even if a prosecution will not result, the taint remains. Such corruption charges have been circulating for years. "The National Legal and Policy Center, a Falls Church, Virginia-based group that backs smaller government, in 2006 filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department questioning an increase in Mollohan’s net worth. For 2005, Mollohan and his wife reported assets worth $6.8 million to $25.7 million, up from $116,000 to $315,000 in 1999, when he restated financial disclosure forms after the group’s complaint."

(2) Its clear the district in question is not typical of blue state West Virginia as a whole, and as such, its very possible for a democratic challenger to run to the right of a more liberal incumbent and win the primary. How the general election turns out may be a very different question.

(3) Out of 535 Senators and congressmen, having two lose in the primaries is as of yet an insignificant number. IMHO, not enough to come anywhere close to supporting the thesis that 2010 is an anti incumbency year.

 

[Vette73]

^

Crist in FL is another. That and Spector in PA and another in arkansas are in trouble right now.

 

[Double Trouble]

Then explain Spector in PA. He may lose the primary as he is too conserative. The person running against him is saying I am a Dem hes not. :awe:

The Specter scenario is different, he was a repub for all those years and then switched sides. I'm sure there are many dems in his state that are very wary of him being a 'real' dem.

 

[Double Trouble]

IMHO, not enough to come anywhere close to supporting the thesis that 2010 is an anti incumbency year.

There's already a mountain of evidence to suggest that 2010 is an anti-incumbency year, but there's a lot of time between now and November, and it remains to be seen if the people will choose to put republicans back in due to their anger or just vote out incumbents for other members of the same party.

 

[Vette73]

The Specter scenario is different, he was a repub for all those years and then switched sides. I'm sure there are many dems in his state that are very wary of him being a 'real' dem.

Yea thats why I had the :awe:

That and I just read a story where he kept calling a Dem group a republican group several times. Don;t think that will help him.
He has gone from a 20+ point lead to a draw at best now.

 

[werepossum]

Then explain Spector in PA. He may lose the primary as he is too conservative. The person running against him is saying I am a Dem hes not. :awe:

I think Magic Bullet Specter (who was a Democrat before he was a Republican before he was a Democrat) is too ass hat rather than too conservative, and I certainly hope he loses in the primary as that means less chance of him ever returning to the Senate. And certainly a Democrat could lose the primary by being too conservative. There are probably districts (though maybe not states) where an incumbent Democrat is at least threatened due to not more strongly supporting single payer government health care. The broad trend though is clearly toward the conservative side.

 

[kranky]

There's an ad running in PA by Sestak (Specter's opponent) where they use film of a grinning Specter saying "Switching parties will enable me to be re-eeeellleccctttteeeddd." (He draws out the "re-elected" word in a very creepy way.) Pretty potent, don't know where it came from, but it had a look of something taken when Specter thought he wasn't being recorded.

 

[Acanthus]

Then explain Spector in PA. He may lose the primary as he is too conserative. The person running against him is saying I am a Dem hes not. :awe:

Specter is a horrible horrible person... It doesn't matter what letter you put next to his name.

Incumbents losing primaries is significant... That means they cant even get votes from their own party, which means there is enormous distaste for them from the public as a whole.

You're likely to see a shakeup in IL in the coming years as well, with all of the fucked up dept of education money from the Blago audits.