Challenging the establishment: Primaries in three states, runoff in one more test voters’ mood
By David Espo, APTuesday, August 10, 2010
Tuesday’s primaries test political establishment
WASHINGTON — In a season of peril for establishment politicians, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet battled primary challenger Andrew Romanoff in Colorado on Tuesday, and voters in Connecticut, Minnesota and Georgia picked their parties’ candidates for fall campaigns for Congress and governor.
Bennet was the latest in a string of incumbents to face serious challenges from within their own parties. So far this year, two senators and four House members have fallen.
Subplots on Tuesday also included presidential hopefuls bestowing endorsements in hopes of helping themselves in the 2012 race for the White House.
Nowhere was that more evident than in Georgia, where former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin endorsed former Secretary of State Karen Handel in her bid to become the state’s first female governor. Handel was in a runoff for the Republican nomination with former Rep. Nathan Deal, who was endorsed by Georgian Newt Gingrich, once the speaker of the House and now a possible presidential contender.
Deal is a former Democrat whose party switch 15 years ago reinforced the Gingrich-led GOP majority after the 1994 congressional elections. Deal also had the support of Mike Huckabee, who won the Georgia presidential primary in 2008.
In other races Tuesday:
— In Connecticut’s Senate primary, Republicans chose among Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, money manager Peter Schiff and former Rep. Rob Simmons, the one-time favorite who suspended his campaign months ago but recently got back into it, running television ads and participating in several debates with Schiff that McMahon declined to attend.
State Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal was unopposed for the Democrats’ Senate nomination to succeed retiring Chris Dodd, also a Democrat.
With Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell retiring, Connecticut voters also settled a pair of contested gubernatorial primaries.
GOP contenders included Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele; Tom Foley, a businessman and former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, and business executive Oz Griebel.
Democrats seeking a ticket to the fall campaign were former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy and Ned Lamont, a businessman making his second try for statewide office. Lamont won a Senate primary four years ago, upsetting Sen. Joe Lieberman, who then won a new term in the fall as an independent.
— In Minnesota, where Democrats have not elected a governor in nearly a quarter-century, former Sen. Mark Dayton, former state Rep. Matt Entenza and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher vied for the party’s nomination. Republican state lawmaker Tom Emmer had only minor opposition, and recently announced a campaign shake-up to prepare for the fall.
Five rivals vied for the independent line on the fall ballot — in a state where Jesse Ventura was elected governor a dozen years ago as a third party contender.
— In Colorado, the challenge was to Democratic Sen. Bennet, who was appointed to his seat nearly two years ago when Ken Salazar resigned to become Interior secretary in the Obama administration.
Romanoff, a former speaker of the state House, had hoped for the appointment, and he spurned entreaties from senior party officials to skip the race with Bennet.
In an intense campaign, both men sought the mantle of political outsider. Yet each relied on very well-known establishment politicians to help them — President Barack Obama in Bennet’s case and former President Bill Clinton in Romanoff’s.
The Republican primary was equally intense, pitting former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton against Ken Buck, a county district attorney and former federal prosecutor.
They, too, sparred over ownership of the outsider’s credentials. Both also have ties to tea party activists, although Buck expressed frustration at one point, asking aloud for someone to tell those “dumba—s” to stop asking him about Obama’s birth certificate while he was being recorded. He later expressed regret for the remarks.
In the state’s gubernatorial campaign, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper was unchallenged for the Democratic nomination.
The Republican rivals were former Rep. Scott McInnis and businessman Dan Maes, each marring their chances through self-inflicted wounds.
McInnis has acknowledged receiving $300,000 as part of a foundation fellowship for a water study report that was partly plagiarized. His chief rival, businessman Dan Maes, has paid $17,500 for violating campaign finance laws.
The spectacle prompted former Rep. Tom Tancredo to jump into the race as an independent, which in turn led state party chairman Dick Wadhams to say it would be difficult if not impossible to defeat the Democrat this fall.
(This version CORRECTS Corrects to Fedele; Clarifies Simmons’ campaign action; Note contents of 19th paragraph. Polls close in Georgia at 7 p.m. EDT, in Connecticut at 8 p.m. and in Colorado and Minnesota at 9 p.m.)
Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Campaigns, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, North America, Political Endorsements, Political Resignations, Primary Elections, Sarah palin, State Elections, United States, Washington
