Even though Jake Wagman of Political Fix didn’t know, a week ago, who Byron DeLear and Mike Garman were, he had a more accurate sense of how that election might go than I did.
I bow to Wagman’s superior knowledge.
In which I eat crow
06 Wednesday Aug 2008
Posted in Uncategorized
is that Bill Haas comments quite frequently on the Post-Dispatch’s blog, so at least he’s not completely unsavy on the internet. Hopefully, he’ll see the value in posting on showmeprogress.com.
I eat crow with you as I thought that Garman and DeLear would do much better.
in the congress since Akin will destroy Haas. (Please God–make me eat crow in November–I wouldn’t mind being wrong at all).
I noted also that Haas had written several comments on the Political Fix blog post that dealt with the contest in the 2nd. He kept talking about how he could prevail over his candidates given the nature of the electorate here and saying ad nauseum “if you know what I mean.” Hasn’t anyone told him that even conservatives hate being condescended to and treated like freaks. I felt embarrassed on Haas’ account.
I think that what happened is what always seems to happen in the 2nd and which I noted in a posting to Primary Election Open Thread posting:
If it had been a two or three-way contest between Haas and one or two of the other candidates, he probably wouldn’t have won. Does this make sense?
I don’t even live in the district anymore, but this occurred to me last night while I was hunched over the computer, mourning:
Akin is such an extreme ideologue that even the majority of Republicans don’t side with him on many issues. His radicalism, plus a crushing wave of Democratic Senators and Congressmen, virtually guarantees that he’ll have a completely ineffectual term.
I know that’s little consolation to those who are still in the district, but hopefully a new Congress and a Democratic White House will bring such a sea change that even the boat of MO-2 will be lifted by the rising tide.
(Sorry for the overdone metaphor.)
I don’t think you need to eat too much crow, Hot Flash. I suspect that Haas won because there was a large crossover vote of Republicans protecting Akin.
Nothing against Bill Haas but he was never considered a serious candidate in the 2nd. Who better for the Repubs to use as a foil for their admittedly at-risk Bush clone Akin?
Even the runner up in the 2nd had Republican support!
When will Missouri Dems get smart and realize they have to pass legislation to make sure that ONLY Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries? Is it possible that’s why we saw so many fake Dems (read that stealth Republicans) winning in so many races? The few REAL Democrats who won had outstanding, immense support from REAL Democratic groups.
Are any of these a possibility?
A) On August 5th, did a couple hundred Republicans take Democrat ballots and mark “Haas?”
B) Did someone, like a St. Charles County Director of Elections, notorious GOP, (or one of his minions) mess with a Diebold machine? Or more than one machine? Talking to election judges in my precinct, many do not appear to be knowledgable of the law or be very tech savvy. It would not be difficult to fiddle with a high tech machine in a way that the AARP set could not detect.
Don’t have a hissy–I am a card-carrying AARP member myself.
C) Was Pentland talked into running to dilute votes?
Just asking, I beg to be informed.