Election Day Takeaways (posted by DT)

This week there were a number of interesting elections around the country. What do they all mean?
Different things in different elections. To run them down:

• Pennsylvania Senate primary: Arlen Specter lost to Joe Sestak, a more traditional liberal winning the Democratic primary against the party-switching moderate. This is being spun in Republican circles as a setback for Obama, but I don't see it. The President accepted Specter's party switch as a vote he needed at the time, and Obama followed through on a promise by endorsing Specter for re-election as a Democrat. That doesn't mean he needs Specter to win re-election. If Sestak wins in November we end up with a more reliable vote for the Democratic agenda. And Sestak probably has a better shot than Specter, as he doesn't have the party switching baggage. Specter is the big loser here- the guy is 80 years old and should have retired with some dignity. How ridiculous does it look when he votes for virtually every filibuster when he's a Republican, but then switches parties and votes against every single filibuster. The guy appears to have no conscience at all and deserves to be finished.
• Pennsylvania special congressional election: replacing the recently deceased John Murtha, Mark Critz, a Democrat, won a very competitive district that went for John McCain in 2008. This is great news for Democrats, a glimmer of hope for November.
• Rand Paul, a true Tea Party guy, won the Republican primary in Kentucky against a more "establishment" candidate. Tough call on what to think for this liberal. Kentucky should be an easy Republican win anyway, but elected a pretty nutty guy makes it possible for Dems to win. On the other hand, Paul is a nut and it's not good to have nuts in the Senate. On the other other hand, even mainstream Republicans have been completely obstructionist lately (hello John McCain), walking back from any moderate positions they ever held, so maybe it doesn't matter. With all the Tea Party types, I'm left wondering whether they're really crazy like many of their minions, or whether they're just cynically exploiting them. Seeing how the act in office is sort of a scary way to find out.
• In Arkansas Blanche Lincoln has to go through another runoff and may not win the Democratic primary. She is a centrist being challenged from the Left. I generally root for the Left as my readers know. There's room for centrist Dems, but if they don't vote for anything on the Democratic agenda than I'd just as soon have them go down- they're not doing us any good. Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are in this category for me. Blanche Lincoln isn't quite in that category, so I hope that electing someone friendlier to labor doesn't swing a winnable election to the Republicans.

So hope is blooming for me all in all. Jobs mean everything heading into November.