A Message From Blue America (via Darcy Burner)

It didn't go well for progressives last night. So we pick ourselves up and we keep on fighting.

We lost in Wisconsin. Corporate spending outweighed grassroots organizing. Scott Walker, who outspent Tom Barrett something like 25-1 took 1,331,076 votes (53%) to Barrett's 1,158,337 (46%). In short, Walker spent 88% of the money to get 53% of the vote. The one bright note from last night was that the Democrats only had to take back one Senate seat to stop the Walker-ALEC agenda in it's tracks-- and they did. While Republican state senators Scott Fitzgerald, Terry Moulton, and Jerry Petrowski all beat back the replacement efforts Racine Democrat John Lehman beat incumbent Van Wanggaard, 51-49%, less than a thousand votes separating them.


In New Mexico, although the heinous Marty Chavez was kept from advancing to the general, progressive champion Eric Griego was also beaten-- and by a weak, corrupt Democrat, Michelle Lujan Grisham, who will have trouble holding the seat in November. The final results: Grisham 19,011 (40.1%), Griego 16,631 (35.0%) and Chavez 11,817 (24.9%). In Montana two progressives, Franke Wilmer (18.3%) and Dave Strohmaier (14.0%) , split the progressive vote and allowed a weak Democratic hack, Kim Gillan (31.1%), who will lose in November, slip into the nomination.

And that left California, where turnout was startlingly low and voters... surly. The good news-- about the only good news of the night-- came from just north of L.A. where in CA-25 and CA-26 Lee Rogers and Julie Brownley make it to the general election. Brownley, with a million dollar cash infusion from DC Dems, beat back a challenge by "Independent" (read: mainstream Republican) Linda Parks and came in second to radical right extremist Tony Strickland, who she'll go toe to toe with this fall. The final was Strickland 44.2%, Brownley 26.8% and Parks 18.5%.

Next door, longtime incumbent and powerful chair of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon was held to a shockingly weak 50.2% first place finish and he'll be facing Rogers in November. Please consider helping Rogers here on our ActBlue page. McKeon was unable to buy his wife a slot in the general and she came in third in the primary which saw Democrat Ed Headington first (31.6%), Republican Scott Wilk a very close second (31.3%) and Patricia McKeon trailing with 22.3%.

Lori Saldaña (22.0%) is still in a dead heat with New Dem Scott Peters (22.6%) in CA-52, which, combined, is more than Brian Bilbray managed to pull (41.3%). In CA-51 it looks like Juan Vargas will face off against Republican Michael Crimmins is a conservative vs conservative match-up. Denise Ducheny seems to have not made it to the runoff.

In the Berman/Sherman race (CA-30), the less reprehensible Sherman came out ahead, 42.4- 32.4% and they'll continue wasting millions fighting it out. Sherman is more populist on financial matters and when asked if they would each vote again to attack Iraq, Berman said YES and Sherman said NO. Still undecided is the blue-leaning 31st district (San Bernardino), where two Republicans are leading. Carpetbagger congressman Gary Miller (26.7%) is ahead but local Republican Bob Dutton (24.9%) and the DCCC pick Pete Aguilar (22.8%) are still in contention. (No, it doesn't look good; it looks like this will be a Republican vs Republican general election match-up.)

Also, still not called is the race for the second of two finalists for the general election to replace Lynn Woolsey in CA-2, although, as you can see in this chart, it doesn't look promising for our candidate, Norman Solomon: [UPDATE: There are 40,000 uncounted votes, mostly from Marin and Sonoma-- so don't write him off yet.]


I hope you watched Darcy's video up top. If you didn't, please do. We have a long way between now and November. And there's a lot at stake-- not least of which is Darcy's own race in a new Washington state swing district. Darcy's ahead among the Democratic candidates in every poll-- very substantially ahead, in fact-- but the DCCC is pumping behind the scenes for a reprehensible one-percenter, Suzan DelBene, who they hope will self-fund her own campaign. Current polling shows DelBene running a very distant third, behind Darcy and a raving conservative named Laura Ruderman.