Wow! Pennsylvania Primary: Blue Dog Democrats Lose Seats

[mfcorey1]

snip

Holden lost to progressive candidate Matt Cartwright, an attorney who attacked the incumbent for voting against President Barack Obama's health care reform. Holden is the second House member to lose to a newcomer in the 2012 primaries. The other lawmaker was Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio). Both were also targeted by the anti-incumbent super PAC, the Campaign for Primary Accountability.

Getting a progressive Democrat into Pennsylvania's newly redrawn 17th Congressional District was a priority for progressive groups, including MoveOn and the League of Conservation Voters. The latter ran the largest independent expenditure campaign in the race, which included a $230,000 TV ad buy on broadcast and cable networks in the Scranton media market. The spot criticized Holden for opposing Obama's clean energy plan.

The League of Conservation Voters "targeted Representative Tim Holden for defeat explicitly because he has opposed policies that will curb harmful global warming pollution and build a clean energy economy," said Gene Karpinski, the group president. "Tim Holden is the first candidate this cycle to lose because he is out of the mainstream on global warming and clean energy, but he won't be the last.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/pennsylvania-primary-blue-dog-democrats_n_1450926.html

[longship]

1. I sincerely hope this works out

We may lose the Senate this November. But if we can take the House back, that would be great.

Frankly, this year's election is getting scary.

[Recursion]

6. Fortunately Snowe gave us a present by retiring

The GOP's only really safe pick-ups are ND and NE. They'll have to run the table of FL, MO, MT, VA, and WI while also defending Brown in MA and keeping Snowe's seat in ME -- not to mention the fact that Nevada and even Arizona aren't as GOP-safe as people thought a year ago. Plus this will happen in coordination with OFA's scary-good ground game and WI will have very recent call lists thanks to the Walker recall this summer.

[MJJP21]

2. STILP

also beat favorite Vinsko to face Barletta in Nov. These two races are very good news for things to come.

[quinnox]

3. great to hear, the less dinos the better

Though I'm sure there will be certain posters who only care about whether our "team" wins or not, to come along and say how terrible this was, because maybe the dinos had a better chance to win the race vs the repubs, and that is all that matters.

Nice to be reminded in the article that it was the conservadems and the dinos who were the ones flattened in the 2010 elections, this seems to be (conveniently?) forgotten much of the time here at Du, again by certain posters.

[lonestarnot]

5. Gas bags!

[Recursion]

7. I don't think anyone forgets this, but the idea that they would have won had they been more liberal

is pretty silly. Gene Taylor and Ike Skelton weren't booted because health care reform didn't go far enough, but because they enabled the party that passed it.

[Arkana]

8. Hey, if they can win the primaries, more power to them.

[lonestarnot]

4. Exciting!

[RC]

9. What needs to be done is to use the GOP's own talking points and Republican Planks against them.

If the Democrats do this election correctly, the Election in November will be a cross the board slam dunk.
However, I have little hope the Democrats running for office will take advantage of the wing-nuttery of the GOP. This will be basically just another campaign and election and that will give credence to the GOP's bull shit. (Or the French version, 'bovine excrement' for the easily offended.)