Friday, May 19, 2006

Conservatives revolt against GOP

Pennsylvania held its primary election on Tuesday, and the results weren't pretty for incumbent politicians. At least a dozen incumbent state legislators were defeated, most of them Republicans. That includes the two top Republicans in the State Senate. One legislator was defeated by a 21-year-old college Republican. The motivating factor for this political earthquake was a huge pay raise for themselves that the legislature pushed through without debate in the middle of the night.

In Utah, the state Republican Party held its convention, and challenger John Jacob received more votes than incumbent Republican Chris Cannon. Conservatives rejected Cannon due to his pro-amnesty stance on immigration. He votes like a conservative on most other issues. The race will now go to a primary, since neither candidate received at least 60% of the vote.

This follow on the heels of the defeat of Indiana Senate Majority Leader at the hands of a conservative challenger.

Also, several incumbent legislators in North Carolina were defeated by conservative challengers after working too closely with the Democrats.

Up until now, the conventional wisdom has been that Democrats will gain seats in the upcoming elections. But what if instead, conservatives toss out the incumbents who have forgotten where they came from?

1 comment:

Dan Roth said...

I think what we're seeing is the conservatives taking back their party. For too long we've had middle of the road Republicans who don't stand for conservative issues and ideals. We should see interesting things happen this election year in our party.