Even as Super Tuesday approaches, it's worth considering the impact of the primaries on lower ticket candidates. Is the change message really that compelling on a primary level in Congressional races? While Super-Tuesday may not conclusively end the Democratic nomination for President, it will conclusively show the results of a change message on a more localized level. We'll know the results Dan Lipinski-Mark Pera primary. I put up some mailers from Women's Voices Women's Vote Action Fund on behalf of Pera, NARAL has done some, and so has the Center for Community Change. Still, primaries are extremely costly and difficult, with Lipinski saying he votes with the Democrats 95% of the time, and third candidate Jerry Bennett potentially splitting the anti-Lipinski vote. Pera's going to have to hope that the Obama vote comes out and comes out for him, which is quite possible.
In Maryland's fourth, Al Wynn has endorsed Barack Obama and is doing robocalls asking people to vote for Obama and Wynn on February 12. I taped part of the robocall and put it up above in the youtube clip. Obama voters tend to be more of Donna's base, but with a massive turnout, it's not clear who they will go for because it's a low information environment. These are new primary voters, these are change voters, but have they heard about the candidates enough to make Donna the change vote?
And finally, we have Ed Fallon challenging Bush Dog Leonard Boswell in Iowa. Boswell endorsed Clinton in the primary, an embarrassment showing he was out of step with his own constituents. Ed Fallon, the progressive primary challenger, is generating good headlines, radio, and TV, while Boswell is doing standard message-testing with polling in district for the June primary. Boswell has around $700k on hand, with about 74% of that coming from PACs, including your standard AT&T, Boeing, Conagra, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, the NRA, Raytheon, Verizon, and Walmart. There's also a good amount of labor money, and a bunch from sitting members of Congress (including progressives), and most of the non-PAC money came from high dollar individuals.
Primaries are really expensive, and Leonard Boswell has a lot of cash. The wild card here is whether outside groups will be a part of the race, and whether the overall change environment can impact lower ticket races. We'll know more soon.
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