Primarily Speaking

In Pennsylania, Peg Luksik did not succeed in being nominated. So, although she has a history of third party activity, it seems reasonable to assume that she will not now be elected as a much-needed spur to the Democrats to run pro-life, pro-family, anti-war candidates who are economically and culturally patriotic. If they don't want to be beaten by people who are like that, but who are not also in favour of measures such as public healthcare and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Speaking of which, a primary challenge was seen off by Kathy Dahlkemper, a pro-life and Second Amendment Democrat who co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act and who, despite being a Blue Dog, voted in favour of the Healthcare Bill. The Republicans failed to win the seat vacated by the death of John Murtha, another pro-life Democrat. Instead, his pro-life, Second Amendment protégé, Mark Critz, carried with strong union backing the only district to have turned from Kerry in 2004 to McCain in 2008.

For the Senate, the emphasis now needs to be on Pat Toomey's involvement in the Club for Greed, with its motto of "invade the world, invite the world, in hock to the world"; the second of those three needs to be emphasised heavily. Mind you, "Sestak or Toomey?" is not much better than asking "Would you rather be run over by a train, or by a bus?" You would rather not be run over at all.

Meanwhile, Blanche Lincoln will go to a runoff against a candidate who can make up his mind. And Rand Paul has romped home to the nomination. So the challenge to the Democratic Party will be issued in and from the Senate: if you want to win, then you need morally and socially conservative, economically and culturally patriotic foreign policy realists. Otherwise, people will vote for such candidates anyway. But they won't be economic populists who are Democrats for that reason. They won't be economic populists at all. And they won't be Democrats at all, either.

In that vein, it is almost worth hoping for the election of Kesha Rogers, the Democratic nominee in TX-22. That would force the Democrats to ask themselves how and why anyone who wanted to vote to end the bailouts, to restore Glass-Steagall, to bring home the troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, to invest in key infrastructure, and to give expression to certain conservative moral and social views, could not automatically do so simply by voting for a mainstream Democrat, who in Texas would have combined the best of the Populists and the Farmers' Alliance with the best of the Texas Tories, but instead had to make do with a supporter of Lyndon LaRouche.