Posted on 05/01/2006 12:55:59 PM PDT by Paul -V-
This will be my first, and last, post on FreeRepublic for a very long time.
I am an unabashed Liberal. However, I want to assure the mods that I am not here to do any trolling. In fact, I just wanted to say a few nice words about Freeper John Armor. (aka April 25, 2006 "Congressman Billybob.")
If you live in NC District 11 and are a Republican, please vote for John Armor in this weeks primary race.
As a yellow-dog Democrat, I will never vote for Armor; but he is a man of integrity and will not accept bribes.
My entire "semi-endorsement" letter is here:
http://www.brainshrub.com/taylor-armor-primary
I won't republish the entire thing here because, like I wrote earlier, I don't want to case any flame wars or get "Zotted." I'm just here to plug a man I'd never vote for, but have to admit that he is better than the incumbent.
I understand the rules for this forum, so I won't be posting here again.
Thank you.
It ain't gonna happen. The night was one long cold shower.
Looks as if I'll have to read up on Betty Sutton.
indeed
She doesn't have the baggage that Sawyer or Capri have.
Democratic Brad Ellsworth 25756 Republican John N. Hostettler 21684
Betty Sutton is just another liberal statist labor lawyer.
http://www.bettysuttonforcongress.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={7B4FF5BC-F1CD-4EA2-953C-67E866D3C429}
Democratic Joe Donnelly 22742
Steve Francis 4511
Republican Chris Chocola 17630
Tony Zirkle 7448
District 9 (D&R) Democratic Gretchen Clearwater 2313
Baron P. Hill 17070
John (Cosmo) Hockersmith 794
Lendall B. Terry 804
Republican Sam Schultz 3121
Mike Sodrel 13839
That's not a surprise. Hostettler always has a close race and there wasn't much to turn out for in IN.
The Dems earned tonight 3 tossup seats in Indiana is my guess, with the Dems in the hunt for Dem lean in all of them.
I wouldn't read too much into that, either. Chocola isn't going anywhere. Sodrel's and Hostettler's will be the only races to watch in November. It isn't unusual that the higher turnout would be for the IN 'Rats since they were the only ones with more contested elections.
Well the Dems managed to struggle to the polls in greater numbers than the Pubbies, perhaps, or maybe some switched. Either way, the numbers cannot be explained away. At a minimum, the Pubbies have a demoralization problem. The numbers are more meaningful, because I don't think there is party registration in Indiana.
What hot races did the Dem have to pull them to the polls, while the Pubbies stayed home? It didn't look as if there were any hot races in the Dem primaries in the three CD's. Plus the Chicola district is as marginal as the other two, generically.
Space is extending his lead by a good bit. Sulzer falls into third(!):
Space, Zachary T. 16,549 39.07%
Stewart, Jennifer 10,670 25.19%
Sulzer, Joe 10,528 24.85%
Applegate, Ralph A. 4,611 10.89%
Nah, that's not really a big deal at all. The Dems always have far, far more primary voters in the Bloody 8th. Those The numbers now are 40558 Ellsworth and 24025 Hostettler. In 2004 it was 51505 D votes to 39721 and in 2002 it was 58005 D votes to 29673 R votes.
What's ugly are the turnout numbers out of IN-02, fwiw. The Dem vote combined is 27253 votes and the GOP vote combined is 25078. The two counties remaining ordinarily cancel one another out (Cass is GOP and La Porte is Dem; La Porte has more votes, but the Dem margin is smaller).
In 2004 there were 29117 D votes and 43890 R votes in the IN-02 primary. In 2002 there were 37390 D votes and 38593 R votes.
You know I don't think much of reading tea leaves from the primaries (just look at that dramatic swing from 2002 to 2004), but that seems a bit noteworthy.
2 of those seats were going to be challenging, regardless. The 'Rats have been hot to trot for the 8th ever since Hostettler upset "The Great Pretender", the thief of 1984, the late Frank McCloskey. Sodrel won a Republican district that, ironically, hadn't elected one since Earl Wilson's final 1962 victory. As for Chocola, he's a perfect fit for his seat. Tim Roemer's formerly occupying that GOP seat for so long was more a testament to the power of incumbency.
It does however look as if the Dem primary vote margin will be even better than usual in IN-08. I guess we'll just have to see where it ends up.
Good analysis, but were the primaries contested in the 8th in the earlier years?
It is interesting, though in 2004 there was a contested Governor's primary on the Republican side, while the Democratic primary was uncontested. The Presidential contests were over by then.
Reading the tea leaves is fun, isn't it? :)
Chocola simply may not have bothered much to campaign, although he did have a nuisance opponent. If those numbers are lower than expected, it should wake him up not to take anything for granted for the fall. As was said, sometimes the primary numbers aren't necessarily much of an indication for what will happen in the fall. If I saw the figures correctly in Ohio, by that same reckoning, Blackwell should be able to defeat Strickland, if you combine the total GOP vote, but the polls claim otherwise.
If you mean the Dem primaries, the answer's yes - they were contested in IN-08 both in 2004 and 2002.
By the way, these were the 2004 primary numbers in IN-02:
Donnelly: 29,117 (uncontested)
Chocola: 36,847
Zirkle: 7,043
I still don't know if it means anything though. In 2002 as posted above the D-vote and R-vote were very close. Granted, both primaries were contested by several candidates in that open-seat race.
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