Biggest Surprises From Tuesday's Primary Elections

Tuesday night the first state to start reporting was Florida, where polls close earliest. Almost immediately, returns started looking dicey for longtime GOP hypocrite Cliff Stearns, the disliked backbencher best known for claiming America doesn't have what it takes to compete with China and that we should sell off the national parks. A wealthy friend from Florida who has a particular hatred for Stearns called me moaning that if he knew Stearns would have been in so much trouble, he would have thrown in $100,000 for an independent expenditure against him. But that was early in the count. As it turned out, my friend's $100,000 wasn't needed and a little known teabagger with no money, Ted Yoho, defeated him by less than 1,000 votes in 4-man race. Ted Yoho spent $169,475 and Stearns, who was sitting on a couple million, spent $739,406. I guess he thought all those Solyndra lies he's been telling all year would work fine in a GOP primary. But... no:

Ted Yoho- 21,896 (34%)
Cliff Stearns- 21,067 (33%)
Steve Oelrich- 12,017 (19%)
James Jett- 8,710 (14%)

Earlier in the year, Stearns was accused of trying to bribe Jett into dropping out of the race. That was a bad move. Stearns wasn't the first person to try to bribe Jett-- and Jett has made a point of building a reputation as a non-bribable kind of guy. He reported Stearns to the FBI and allowed them to wiretap his phone where they recorded a Stearns agent offering him bribes. That's illegal. Stearns a dirtbag and today no one is crying about his impending departure from Capitol Hill-- not on either side of the aisle.

But that wasn't the only shocker from Florida Tuesday night. In one of the panhandle districts (FL-02), DCCC fave, Blue Dog Leonard Bembry, got wiped out by former Democratic Senate leader Al Lawson. In a 4-man race, Lawson got 46,968 votes (55%) and Bembry got 22,451 votes (26%). Lawson is pretty conservative so don't get your hopes up. Still, nice to know that it was another nail in the Blue Dog coffin and that the DCCC's shilling for Bembry-- which is against party rules-- did him no good at all.

It came as no surprise that Establishment Republican John Mica beat teabagger Sandy Adams in the new 7th CD-- but it was a big margin (61-39%). What was more of a shocker there is that the Blue America-backed progressive, Nick Ruiz, lost to a little known teabagger disguised as a Democrat-- but with an Anglo name that seems to have appealed to the lo-info elderly-- despite the fact that he's running on a platform that includes abolishing the minimum wage.

Across town in one of the other Orlando area districts (FL-09), Alan Grayson was able to throw a wrench into Republican hopes for a viable opponent for him. Grayson designed a brilliant ad campaign that devastated GOP Establishment choice John Quiñones and helped in the nomination of a walking freak show, Todd Long, who even mainstream Republicans will balk at supporting in November. In the 4-man race Long-- who had virtually no money to spend-- wound up with 12,573 votes to Quiñones' 7,507.

The 19th CD, where Senate candidate Connie Mack IV is being replaced, did see a bit of a surprise. Establishment fave-- even Paul Ryan endorsed him-- Chauncey "Porter" Goss-- was defeated by Hate Talk Radio host Henry "Trey" Radel in a 6-man race. Henry got 22,284 (30%) votes and Chauncey took 15,994 (22%). The Hate Talk host will now face Democrat Jim Roach.

Although the outcome wasn't really a surprise, there was a hard-fought race in FL-26 to see which Democrat would face crooked Republican David Rivera. EMILY's List heavily backed an anti-union corporate hack, Gloria Romero Roses, and did a lot of damage to Democrat Joe Garcia but Garcia prevailed with 53% of the votes in a 4 man race. The EMILY's List candidate, who campaigned by flying to the district from her home across the state in a private jet, got 31%.

EMILY's List got slapped down by voters in most of their high profile destructive endeavors and most of their candidates lost-- and lost badly. Unfortunately, in the 3-way race, for the congressional nomination for Connecticut's open 5th CD, the huge sums of money EMILY's List poured into the race won it for ConservaDem 1%-er Elizabeth Esty (with 45%) of the vote. Chris Donovan, one of the best progressive leaders in the whole country was defeated, EMILY's List one accomplishment last night. They also lost the high profile races in Wisconsin and Minnesota for, respectively, Kelda Roys (WI-01) and for the nomination to go up against Chip Cravaack (MN-08), where Richard Nolan beat Tarryl Clark 38-32%.

Next up: Arizona (August 28), where we have to help Raul Grijalva against a fake Democrat and Matt Heinz who has an incredible tough challenge against sleazy ConservaDem, Ron Barber.