lazy media...specter didn't lose cause he was an incumbent

[spanone]

he lost because he's an opportunist politician who swapped parties to save his political ass

:mad:

[mucifer]

1. It's not laziness. They have an agenda. nt.

[DaveinJapan]

7. Agreed 100%!

Funny that the right wingers get away with claiming the media is "left wing" when it's nothing of the sort.

It's "no wing". Or, to put it another way it's "whatever wing is the underdog". Or "whatever wing seems to be in a dogfight with the other wing".

Whatever it takes to sell papers.

(do they even SELL papers anymore? :p)

[ejpoeta]

14. that's what happens when they are more interested in ratings then getting news out.

which is the problem with the multi conglomerate media but i digress. they are trying to be sensational and whip people up into a frenzy. that's why you see the teabaggers with their misspelled signs all over the tv making them seem like a bigger percentage of the population then they really are but not the progressive rallies. the teabaggers have guns and it's like watching cops for politics. more interesting then folks that want to have a conversation. they want people on who shout and yell over each other as if whoever is loudest wins. though rachel maddow doesn't do any of that and i think her ratings are just fine. but i digress again. it's not about the news. it's about 'reality' tv.... the one in which they create a storyline and get stuff that fits into that storyline.

[saltpoint]

2. Specter did not look entirely engaged and alert in some of his appearances

around the state, according to reports.

In Allegheny County, at a gathering of that county's Democrats, Specter told them from the podium that he would like "to thank the Allegheny Republicans" for their support. He meant to say "Allegheny Democrats." Not a small flub against the context of his being a Republican so long and then asking Democratic Party organizers and volunteers for their vote after they've spent decades working for Democrats against Arlen's generally pro-Nixon, pro-Reagan, pro-both-Bushes voting record.

Sestak appeared to be a vigorous and hard-working candidate and long-standing Democratic voters saw no good reason to reject him in favor of Specter's chameleon act.

[BeFree]

3. I am so happy

Specter is finally headed out the door.!!!

Good-bye and good riddance. One down, 50+ more to go.

Dems did not vote for Specter because Specter is not a democrat. Duh!

[saltpoint]

6. I wish there was some magic wand we could wave over states like

Oklahoma.

As you say, there are still more Senators whose early retirement would be welcome news.

[bluedave]

4. weazel

IMHO he was weazel like.

[uponit7771]

5. ..don't forget he ran GOP type polititics in a DNC race.....VERY stupid going after Sestak like that

[CatWoman]

8. and have you noticed they (the media) is trying to pin this all on Obama?

from where I stand, Obama was in a win-win position all along -- regardless who won this Primary.

[Bitwit1234]

9. He lost because the Democrats

have enough republicans posing as Democrats in the Blue Dogs and we wanted him out to be replaced with a real Democrat. And I wish we could have done that to every single one of the Blue Dogs in the House and Senate.

But all the focus is on a hate filled republican Paul who won the republican primary with less votes than the second place Democrat in their primary did.

[spooky3]

10. Agree! I got so sick of watching the coverage on MSNBC but NO one brought

this perspective up. I heard a dozen hypotheses and opinions and no one stated the obvious.

It's true that people farther to the left tend to vote in Dem. primaries and those farther to the right, in Rep. parties. That could be a factor too and could be problematic in the general election. But once again, I heard no mention of this. Just a lot of "what I saw in tonight's results is whatever I wanted to see in them."

[madokie]

11. Correct

He lost because the dems see him for what he is, like you said an opportunist politician. He's been a thorn in our Democracy's side for years and years now. Good riddance.

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. I think he paid for all the support he gave shrub. n/t

[City Lights]

13. Bingo!

Yet another example of our useless corporate "news" media. They SUCK!

[SpiralHawk]

15. A republicon is a republicon is a republicon

And America is sick and tired of republicons, for good reason...

[lonestarnot]

21. emphasis on CON.

:D

[HelenWheels]

16. he lost because he was tied to bush/cheney

That's why the teabaggers won over their republican opponents in the primaries - while they won't admit it the right wingers see the damage done by bush/cheney but are revved up by the blood they put in the water and want more.

[Jennicut]

17. Too bad we didn't kick Lieberman out in 2006 like PA did to Specter.

Now that is one opportunistic asshole.

[Jefferson23]

18. Agreed, but you're being too kind imo by calling the corporate media lazy.

From Glenn Greenwald:

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 07:20 ET

What explains the anti-establishment sentiment?



After last night's election results, there's no doubt that the electorate has contempt for Washington incumbents and the political establishment. Virtually every media account dutifully recites the same storyline -- that these results reflect an "anti-incumbent" mood -- but virtually none of these stories examines the reasons for that "mood." Why do Americans, seemingly regardless of party affiliation or geographic location, despise the political establishment?

One reason why media mavens seem reluctant, even unable, to grapple with this question is because it so plainly falls outside their familiar, comfortable narratives. Contrary to efforts earlier this year to depict the problem as one aimed at Democratic incumbents due to the unpopular health care plan and the growing "tea party" movement, Republican voters -- as demonstrated in Florida, Utah, and last night in Kentucky -- clearly hate their own party's leadership at least as much as the animosity directed toward Democratic incumbents. The trend is plainly trans-partisan and trans-ideological, and the establishment political media has a very difficult time understanding or explaining dynamics about which that is true.

Continue reading
So extreme is the anger toward the political establishment that not even popular politicians have any impact on it. Despite the fact that he remains quite popular with his state's GOP voters, Mitch McConnell's handpicked candidate was slaughtered in Kentucky by a highly unconventional and establishment-scorned Rand Paul. And just as Massachusetts voters did in December when President Obama traveled there to plead with them to elect Martha Coakley, only for them to reject those pleas and send Scott Brown to the Senate, Democratic voters completely ignored Obama's vigorous support for incumbent Senators Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln, sending the former to ignominious defeat after 30 years, and forcing the latter into an extremely difficult run-off with Bill Halter (who was recruited by Accountability Now, an organization I helped found and continue to run).

It makes perfect sense that the country loathes the political establishment. Just look at its rancid fruits over the past decade: a devastating war justified by weapons that did not exist; a financial crisis that our Nation's Genuises failed to detect and which its elites caused with lawless and piggish greed; elections that seem increasingly irrelevant in terms of how the Government functions; grotesquely lavish rewards for the worst culprits juxtaposed with miserable unemployment and serious risks of having basic entitlements (Social Security) cut for ordinary Americans; and a Congress that continues to be owned, right out in the open, by the very interests that have caused so much damage. The political establishment is rotten to its core, and the only thing that's surprising is that the citizenry's contempt isn't even more intense than it is. But precisely because that dynamic so clearly transcends Left/Right or Democratic/GOP dichotomies, little effort is expended to understand or explain it.

One of the most interesting and important questions is whether this trans-partisan, anti-establishment anger can bring about some cracks in the rigid partisan polarization that serves, more than anything else, to preserve the status quo. Consider, for instance, that Rand Paul's campaign included some serious questioning of the war in Afghanistan and that Sen. Tom Coburn recently threatened to filibuster the $33.5 billion war supplemental spending bill if it isn't independently paid for, combined with the Democrats' realization that they will be forced on their own to fund the endless -- and increasingly ugly -- war in Afghanistan. Or consider the odd spectacle that numerous Republicans are beginning to take the lead in questioning and even objecting to the Obama administration's efforts to further whittle away civil liberties and vest itself with greater unchecked power.

remainder: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

[gauguin57]

19. Who knows why he lost? Turnout was crappy in PA. A small percent of the electorate decded that race.

So how can anyone make any grand statement about "the electorate"? The electorate was at home sitting on its ass (not me, of course ... I walked through the tumbleweeds to vote at my nearly-empty polling place).

[CanonRay]

20. He's the jerk who forced Clarence Thomas on us.

and took Anita Hill apart. I for one haven't forgotten.

[Iggo]

22. He lost because he was a Rep running in a Dem primary.