YESTERDAY'S PRIMARIES

Turnout was strong in South Dakota and Montana today. But these last two presidential primaries are by no means the end of the primary season, not when there are hot races from New York to Alaska. I think the last one is Massachusetts, where the Republicans have redder faces than usual, on September 16. From the progressive point of view, we have important campaigns culminating in Georgia on July 15 (pitting "Voice of the Voiceless" state Senator Regina Thomas against corporate shill and Bush Dog John Barrow), Alaska on August 26 (where progressive grassroots candidate Diane Benson is contending with 2 establishment insiders, Ethan Berkowitz and Jake Metcalfe for the seat the voters will be taking away from Republicrook Don Young), and Virginia (where a week from today Leslie Byrne is battling corrupt war profiteer associate Gerry Connolly).

Early today South Dakota's Secretary of State was estimating a 40-45% turnout among Democrats (normal is 15-40%) and a 25% turnout among dishearted and discouraged Republicans. In Montana they were expecting close to half of the state's Democrats to vote, a 10% increase over 2004. Obama had already clinched the nomination before today's voting was halfway over.

As for Blue America we had some wins and some losses today. Although reactionary Dem Leonard Boswell had a close call, he managed to retain his seat; big disappointment! Our other candidates won today: Martin Heinrich in New Mexico, Dennis Shulman in New Jersey. We'll update on California later, although I was delighted to see L.A.absentee voters decisively turned down racist loon Bill Johnson despite concentrated support from the Paulista camp in an abysmally low turnout election. We were also happy to see NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg, one of the most progressive members of the Senate, win decisively against right-leaning, Bush-supporting Democratic Congressman Robert Andrews. All the New Jersey primary votes are here.


UPDATE: MORE RESULTS

James Bianco beat racist maniac Bill Johnson 346,510 (73.87%) to 122,548 (26.13%). Hard to imagine that many people could have voted for someone with Johnson's views, although it's likely they didn't know what he was all about.

Also in California, Russ Warner took 70% of the vote in CA-26 and will face ultimaqte Republican rubber stamp David Dreier. On the right, California Republicans in the extreme north of the state had to pick between a mainstream conservative, Doug Ose, and off-the-cliff extremist, Tom McClintock. They picked the fanatic loon (of course) giving him 54% of the vote-- and making it easier for Charlie Brown to win in November.