Two more Conservatives DEFEAT Republican Party candidates in Congressional primaries. .......RINOs cower in stunned disbelief.
Arkansas, Kentucky Voters Stun GOP Establishment – and President Obama
By Hastings Wyman
Southern Political Report
May 23, 2012 —
In yesterday’s no-real-contest presidential primaries in Arkansas and Kentucky, Mitt Romney won substantial but not impressive victories, 68 percent in Arkansas, and 67 percent in Kentucky over his well-known but out-of-the-race rivals. But President Obama’s victories were even more anemic, 58 percent in Arkansas to 42 percent for unknown Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe; and in Kentucky, 58 percent for Obama to 42 percent for “uncommitted.”
In addition, in both Arkansas and Kentucky, congressional candidates backed by two of the GOP’s most influential conservative groups, the Tea Party and the Club for Growth, won important congressional primaries. Their primary victories increase the clout of these and similar groups within the Republican Party, as well as further cement the party’s fortunes to its more conservative wing.
In Arkansas’s 4th District (Pine Bluff, etc.), Tom Cotton, an Army reservist who left his Washington consulting firm to run for Congress in his native Arkansas, won the Republican nomination by 57 percent to 37 percent for Beth Anne Rankin, the party’s 2010 nominee. In third place, with 5 percent, was former Marine John Cowart.
Cotton had the active support of the Tea Party and a much larger budget, raising $1.1 million to Rankin’s $400,000. Club for Growth, a national group of fiscal conservatives, contributed $300,000 to Cotton, about one-fourth of the money he raised.
Rankin is a former Miss Arkansas and a former aide to former Arkansas governor, former presidential candidate and Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee, who endorsed her candidacy.
In the Democratic Primary, state Sen. Gene Jeffress led with 40 percent, to 36 percent for attorney Byrum Hurst and 25 percent for Dan Morrison. There will be a runoff between Jeffress and Hurst on June 12.
The Arkansas district is being vacated by six-term US Rep. Mike Ross (D). The district was made slightly more Republican following the 2010 Census; Barack Obama got 39 percent in the district in 2008, but only 37 percent within the new boundaries. In November, the district leans Republican.
In Kentucky’s 4th District (Ashland, etc.), where four-term US Rep. Geoff Davis (R) is not seeking reelection, Lewis County Judge-Executive Thomas Massie won with 45 percent to 29 percent for state Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington, 15 percent for Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore, 8 percent for businessman Walter Schumm and 3 percent for three minor candidates. Only a plurality is needed to win a primary in Kentucky.
Massie, an MIT-educated engineer, inventor and venture capitalist, had the support of his party’s conservative insurgents, while the GOP establishment was divided between Webb-Edgington and Moore. Massie had the active backing of US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and his father, Texas Congressman/presidential candidate Ron Paul, as well as the Club for Growth, the Tea Party, and Liberty for All, a Texas-based libertarian super-PAC, which spent $500,000 on television on Massie’s behalf. Webb-Edgington was supported by Davis, former US Sen. Jim Bunning, and at least two former state Republican chairmen. Moore had the backing of former US Rep. Ken Lewis.
Attorney Bill Adkins won the Democratic Primary with 69 percent to 31 percent for Greg Frank. In this heavily Republican district, the GOP nominee is a prohibitive favorite in November. |
