Wheres the anti-incumbent rage in Tuesdays primary results?
Too much and too little will be made of tonight’s election results. There has already been a lot of talk about the fierce anti-incumbent mood in the country. The evidence in Senate races is that Democrat Arlen Specter lost in Pennsylvania and Republican Bob Bennett lost in Utah. On the House side, Reps. Parker Griffith (R-Ala.) and Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) lost, and Tuesday Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) was forced into a runoff by Trey Gowdy. With close to 90 percent of the vote in, Gowdy was clobbering Inglis 43 percent to 26 percent, suggesting that Inglis is a goner. But both Specter and Griffith were party switchers, and their new parties rejected them. Is that shocking? Mollahan faced a series of corruption stories that made him vulnerable. Candidates in such situations go down in every cycle. The Bennett and Inglis races are revealing, but not of a national trend. This is all about the Republican Party: In very red states — they don’t get much redder than Utah and South Carolina — it
