Baron’s Long Nightmare Has Only Begun
Baron Hill carried less than 70% of the votes cast in the 9th District Democratic primary, a record low for him. He carried only 60% of the vote in Bloomington.
These figures exclude undervotes, where people left the ballot blank rather than vote for Baron or any of his challengers. In Harrison County, there over a thousand Democrat undervotes in the Congressional race.
In all, more than one Democratic primary voter in three voted against Baron Hill, or at least declined via undervote to vote for him (in terms of undervotes). The bedrock of the Democratic Party in the 9th District has been betrayed. Baron’s base may be in Bloomington now, but the rest of the district has gone in a different direction from him.
Hillary Clinton carried the 9th District by better than 63%. The only county in the district that Obama carried was Monroe. Most counties in the 9th (including my own, Harrison) gave Hillary Clinton margins upward of 70%.
(Read more after the leap)
Moreover, if Hillary Clinton loses Indiana (as is entirely possible given the shenanigans going on in Lake County as I type this), then the long knives will be out by Evan Bayh for Baron Hill and the others who dared upset the apple cart upon which the vice presidential (and presidential) fortunes of Birch’s son were riding.
The county chairs, which Baron told he intended to hold back his endorsement until after the primary, remain unhappy. Their girl losing will not reconcile them. Calling one of the most prominent among them a liar will not help either.
The general election campaign is just starting. Baron’s long nightmare has just begun. And it’s not from Mike Sodrel. He brought it upon himself by going against his own supporters.
(This post also available at the Hoosierpundit)
May 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Many of the undervotes are probably Operation Chaos voters who would not select Hill in the general…
May 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I can’t speak for the by-precinct specifics of other counties, obviously, but the greatest proportions of undervotes in Harrison County were not in the Republican precincts, but in the Democrat and swing ones. Baron’s primary challengers did best in traditonal GOP strongholds.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I’m a little surprised that there aren’t (more) orchestrated attempts by one or both major parties to do an “operation chaos” with a wider variety of contests?
In any case, are there good reasons against closed primaries– and ideally, having each party take care of their own business on their own dime and time?
May 8th, 2008 at 12:26 am
I thought those running against Hill had backing off some of the more left wing elements of party (Moveon etc)? I always assumed this is why he backed Obama as well
May 8th, 2008 at 9:39 am
The biggest protection against operation chaos is for strong slates of candidates–ideally on both sides. It is only because McCain was a done deal enabled Operation Chaos to happen. It was also made possible because the Dems were fairly evenly divided which means that if you can bring about a 1% swing in the votes, you have made a big difference. Indiana is a great example. It is probably true that without Operation Chaos, Obama would have won the primary here. In Texas, it probably did not decide the winner, but it did make the margin look much better.
But I think Operation Chaos type activities happen quite a bit. There were a lot of Dems that switched over in New Hampshire and voted for McCain. Not as much noise was made about it, but it certainly happened. I think the same thing happened in Michigan.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Hippie Gretchen got 31% of the vote? God, there’s why I do NOT miss Bloomington. And is the HT free now?