First, let me just say that we lost, and there is no covering that up. Even though it was close, a win would have been almost 100% better than a loss.
Now, with that said
Anti-Wall Street messaging works: Blanche Lincoln produced strong language on the derivatives portion of the all Street reform bill. She went to the left of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate leadership in her language. Further, it ended up in the bill that passed the Senate because of her primary challenge, and then she proceeded to campaign on it:
[corrected: had the wrong video up overnight]
Even if the Chamber of Commerce went to bat for Lincoln, that is a strong, anti-Wall Street message.--and it is the message that voters heard Democrats should follow suit, keep Lincoln's language in the Wall Street reform bill, and run on it themselves. Honestly, it might be the only thing to save them in 2010, as it saved Lincoln.
Very few incumbents are challenged this hard: Primary challenges rarely come tthis close. For all the blather about the anti-incumbent mood, as Larry Sabato noted over Twitter:
So that's 4 incumbents down, 200 renominated. Um, how's that "anti-incumbent wave" going, my dear headline writers?
Incumbents almost never lose in primaries. Even the losses that have occurred this year all come with asteriks. Arlen Specter and Parker Griffith switched parties. Alan Mollohan had ethics problems. Bob Bennett faced a caucus, not a primary. A Halter win would have been the ultra-rare, straight-up defeat of a Senator largely because that Senator angered her base and progressive organizations. Those defeats happen less than once every two years. Getting challenged this hard is almost as rare.
Low union, netroots denisty: Arkansas is one of the weakest states for the labor and netroots organizations backing Halter. As Eddie Vale points out, Arkansas is 49th out of 50 in terms of union density. It probably isn't too much higher in terms of netroots density. If we can come close in this state, then Senators in almost every other state better take notice.
It is a tough night, but there are good reasons to be proud. We might get some good legislation from this campaign, primary challenges very rarely come this close, and it was this close despite Arkansas being a terrible state for labor and the netroots. Winning would have been a helluva a lot better, but that ain't nothing.
And, most importantly, we are going to keep running these primary challenges, no matter what, bad Dems don't get a break because of what happened here.
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