Two anti-establishment candidates — one on the left, one on the right — scored major victories in political primaries in the latest signs of voter anger that has jolted US politics.
Senator Arlen Specter, a five-term incumbent who switched from Republican to Democrat last year in hopes of keeping his Pennsylvania seat, lost Tuesday’s primary to Congressman Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral, who defied party leaders in pursuing the nomination.
The vote was a setback for US President Barack Obama, who supported Specter, but Sestak might give Democrats a better chance of retaining the seat in the November election given the anti-incumbent sentiment.
In Kentucky, Rand Paul, a political novice supported by the conservative tea party movement, won his party’s nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Jim Bunning. Paul defeated Trey Grayson, a state official. Grayson had been backed by Kentucky’s senior senator, Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate.
POLARIZATION
The results reflect the growing polarization in US society, where politicians in both parties are being pushed away from the center. They also reflect the anti-incumbent, anti-Washington mood of voters who believe that entrenched politicians have lost touch with the public, bailing out wealthy bankers while middle-class Americans struggle to keep their jobs and their homes.
“This is what democracy looks like,” Sestak yelled at supporters. “A win for the people over the establishment, over the status quo, even over Washington, DC.”
“This particular race needed new blood,” 60-year-old Denise Lamar said.
Lamar voted against Specter, saying: “It’s time for him to retire.”
Perhaps indicating that voters were expressing their frustrations at the ballot box, turnout appeared to be up in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Kentucky from the most recent previous statewide primary elections.
The tone for the party nominating season was set on the busiest primary night of the year. However, it’s difficult to say whether this early season trend will hold true during the general election; much could change between now and November, especially given the uncertainty of economic recovery after the worst recession in generations and an unemployment rate hovering at 10 percent.
Tuesday’s primaries came a little less than five months before the November elections in which Obama’s Democrats are trying to preserve their majorities in both chambers of Congress. With the most seats to defend, Democrats seem the most vulnerable to the anti-incumbent sentiment.
However, Democrats received an important boost as they won a closely watched special congressional election in Pennsylvania to fill the seat of the late representative John Murtha.
Though the winner, Mark Critz, will serve only the final months of Murtha’s term, a defeat would have been discouraging in a heavily working-class district held by Democrats for four decades.
MODERATE
In Arkansas, Senator Blanche Lincoln, a moderate who was first elected in 1998 and is considered among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats this fall, was the top vote-getter in her party’s primary.
However, she failed to win the majority of votes needed to avoid a costly run-off against Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter — who was backed by labor unions and progressives — for the nomination.
The winner of the June 8 run-off will face Republican Representative John Boozman, who won the Republican nomination.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS