Posted on 05/09/2012 6:29:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Looks like Tuesday was a bad day for Barack Obama, Democrats in general, and particularly the unions. Three states held primaries, and in each, voters rejected positions and/or candidates associated with all three, in embarrassing vote totals. Let’s start with the least significant of these outcomes, the Democratic presidential primary in West Virginia, where an inmate in federal prison ran a novelty primary challenge to Barack Obama — and came within 20 points of winning (via Polipundit):
An obscure federal prison inmate gave President Obama an unexpected run for his money in the West Virginia Democratic Primary Tuesday, highlighting the deep dislike for the president in the Appalachian heartland.
With 96% of the precincts reporting Tuesday night, Keith Judd was holding steady at 41% of the vote and had won ten counties.
Judd is also known as federal prison inmate Number 11593-051 at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas, where Judd is serving a 210-month sentence for extortion and making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999.
The best part of this story? Thanks to the size of the popular vote for Judd, he’s entitled to at least one delegate at the Democratic National Convention. I’d bet that the DNC will rule that Judd’s ineligibility as a convict will allow them to strip him of whatever delegates he does win, but it’s going to be a little embarrassing nonetheless.
Still, Obama has absolutely no chance of winning West Virginia in a national election anyway, so that’s more sideshow than significant. However, Team Obama needs to carry North Carolina again this year after their narrow 0.3% win in 2008. Obama ran unopposed in the primary in North Carolina, but that doesn’t mean he won all of the votes. In fact, Obama couldn’t reach 80% in the Democratic primary, which featured competitive Congressional primary contests on the ballot. Obama won only 79.2% of the vote, with slightly more than a fifth of all Democratic voters (20.8%) expressing “no preference.” That totals over 140,000 Democrat votes that didn’t go to Obama in an unopposed primary — and Obama only won North Carolina by 14,000 votes in 2008. The Tarheel State’s beginning to look like a lost cause.
Speaking of lost causes, the traditional marriage amendment that Obama publicly opposed in North Carolina passed by a wide margin:
North Carolina has become the 31st state to add an amendment on marriage to its constitution, with voters banning same-sex marriage and barring legal recognition of unmarried couples by state and local governments.
North Carolina is the last state in the south to add such an amendment, and supporters hoped for a resounding victory.
Incomplete returns show the amendment up 59.72 percent to 40.28 percent. Some large counties, including Durham and Mecklenburg have not reported results.
The final results were even more dramatic, 61.05% to 38.95%. That represents a strong rejection of Obama’s position, and a demonstration of why the Tarheel State may already be lost to Obama.
By far the worst news for the Left came in Wisconsin, where primaries were held for the recall elections next month. Tom Barrett won a contentious fight against Kathleen Falk, the candidate of Big Labor who got a ton of union help for her campaign but lost badly by 24 points, 58/34. The real story, though, was Scott Walker, who got more votes than both combined despite facing only token opposition in the Republican primary:
As Barrett was campaigning Tuesday, Walker was barnstorming the state and showing the fight he will bring to what is expected to be a brutal month of canvassing for one of the most important elections to state office in Wisconsin history. A poll last week showed Walker and Barrett in a dead heat.
Walker, who won over 600,000 votes despite facing only token opposition Tuesday, has been preparing for months for the fast-approaching election, raising a record $25 million, while Barrett must now pivot toward this race with far fewer resources.
There was little reason for Republicans to turn out for this primary, as their incumbents are all trying to hold their offices. Walker’s opponent got less than 20,000 votes, while Walker rang up over 626,000. Contrast that the two Democrats, who combined for 619,049 votes, seven thousand less than Walker, in a primary election where unions tried to stoke turnout to boost Falk. Republicans in Wisconsin appear fired up and ready to turn out in June, and presumably in November, to protect their state against Big Labor’s efforts to undo the 2010 elections and take control of the state. That’s not good news for Obama, either, since Obama won Wisconsin in 2008 and needs the state in 2012.
All of that makes for a very bad night indeed for Democrats, and a pretty good indicator which way the wind is blowing before the general election.
“Lesbians in bras and jeans marched through the downtown streets of Asheville, NC, in the wee hours of this morning chanting: “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Classy. “
And they (GLTG dominated APA) claim it’s not a mental disorder.
Yikes. Resulting in dedicated opposition among those few unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse.
Mind you I got no right to make fun of others’ looks, but you won’t catch me marching *anywhere* in only bra and pants!
OBTW, this is a great article encompassing all 3 primaries. Bambi lost 20% of the NC Dem vote to “no preference.” Haw!
The liberal defeats yesterday are important for another reason. Money.
Obama needs donations desperately, and an awful lot of money is sitting on the sidelines waiting to see if he can win. Any indication that he may not win means that those who want something in return for their donation will hold off writing a check.
A lot of donations from business are really just protection money, they give to keep certain events from happening, and to gain an advantage over competitors-sad, but true. The protection money will remain on the sidelines for the most part, until he’s a sure thing.
Seems like it would be a great opportunity for all those Democrats to get in the faces of ordinary North Carolinians around Charlotte. Do like the Democrats did at the State of the Union address when they hectored the Supreme Court.
Yell at them, scream at them, threaten them. Imagine if thousands of hard-core Democrat delegates and political hacks took one day out of the gala convention fun and fanned out across central North Carolina to explain, one-on-one, to those backwards North Carolina rubes how wrong they are to not be ready to follow glorious President Lumumba Obumba into oblivion.
I think it's a winning strategy. Might turn the tide. They could ring up Mike Nifong to help them canvass Durham. He'd probably be up for some free cigs right about now, I'm guessing.
So West Virginia dems decided they would rather have the criminal ‘Barrabus’ than their own Messiah?
RE: The Democrats are holding their national convention in North Carolina, right?
I’d like to see them tell the people of North Carolina that they voted the WRONG WAY on same sex marriage ...
West Virginia vote totals - LOL!
B.H. OBAMA - Democrat - 69,172 - 57.6%
KEITH JUDD - Democrat - 50,909 - 42.4%
http://apps.sos.wv.gov/elections/results/results.aspx?year=2012&eid=8&county=Statewide
Obama will not carry WV, nor will he carry NC. Anyone telling you otherwise is smoking some very good ganja.
Short of some drastic change in the political landscape between now and november, Obama will not get more than low 40s of the popular vote.
Not only this, but it will be a very very bad night for democrats across the country, not just the president.
The democratic senators who voted for Obamacare must finally face the electorate. GOP without question will take the senate, and very likely get a filabuster proof majority of it.
Every poll I’ve seen for 6+ months when I’ve looked into the numbers shows the electorate has concluded the 2008 election of this doofus was a horrible mistake and they will by and large crawl over broken glass to send him packing. There is no enthusiam for this joker at all, just the same old hired mob.
We are looking at a possible routing the likes of which we haven’t seen since Mondale, and possibly since McGovern. Obama is looking at high 30s to low 40s on election night folks. And the more obvious it is he’s going to lose, the nastier and more petty he’s going to get, because he is indeed a small petty man, and that’s going to turn into a self feeding circle down the drain.
This election is flat out a referendum on Obama.. just like 2008 was one on Bush. And he’s going to lose, and lose horribly.
He will lose by the largest margin of any incumbent president since Carter, but Carter was in a 3 way race. His routing I suspect is going to be unprecidented for an incumbent in the modern age.
Um... This sounds like classic counting chickens who haven’t hatched yet. I lived in NC eleven years.. The Raleigh Triangle area, and every major city are uber- libs. The voters remind me of the folks who attend church on Christmas and Easter, they will be imported to vote in troves in November. In West Virginia.. I currently live in coal miner country with miner and Obama 2012 bumper stickers. In Wisconsin, the recall is less than a month away.. all the bused in troves of out of state voters will overwhelm their system. I think we should wait on the victory banner.
Well, Romney did get arrested for that boating incident in 1981, so...
This is true, and significant, but they too will have to assess his ability to win, and therefore be useful to them.
On that point, we all know these donations are illegal, and the current justice department won't do anything about it. I wonder if state attorneys general could file suit?
Closed primary, registered Dems only.
West Virginia vote totals...
B.H. OBAMA - Democrat - 69,172 - 57.6%
KEITH JUDD - Democrat - 50,909 - 42.4%
That's the scenario I was thinking of!
Queers, being mentally ill, can not see that exposing the public to their aggressively immoral and hateful sexual spirit and mentality, is not going to win them any votes in the effort to socially engineer marriage and family around their sexual insanity.
His classic “They acted stupidly” line.
These were likely disgruntled Freepers voicing protest to some sanctimonious trivial issue
Ouch. But I agree with you completely.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.