More lessons learned

Here are some more lessons learned from the primaries last night:

Conservatives aren’t going to vote for a candidate based only on
electability: The principal reason Castle
gave to primary voters was that O’Donnell wasn’t electable. That may be true,
but it was also completely irrelevant. If there is one thing that needs to be
relearned, it is that you need to give voters a reason to vote for you beyond
the fact that you can win in a general election.


Each election is unique: Just
because a candidate has won in the past does not mean that a candidate can win
in the future. Especially in a change year like this one, incumbency can be
more of a burden than a blessing.

Grass roots matter: Say what you
will about Christine O’Donnell. She had a mobilized, passionate following,
despite her obvious flaws. Castle’s supporters may have been just as
passionate, but they didn’t come out in the numbers necessary to win. Especially
in small states (only around 50,000 came out to vote in the Delaware primary), every
vote counts.

Sarah Palin was not the reason O’Donnell won. Neither was Jim DeMint. Palin
also endorsed Brian Murphy in Maryland (who got trounced) and Kelly Ayotte (who
may or may not win). This election was all about Mike Castle. People didn’t
vote for O’Donnell (how could they?). They voted against Mike Castle.

When the voters send a message, listen to it before the election: Mike Castle is a good guy, but he didn’t get the
clear message that was sent to Bob Bennett and Lisa Murkowski: Move right in
the primary. Obviously, that was a hard thing for Castle to do, because he
wanted to be ideologically consistent. But such consistency didn’t bother John
McCain, who embraced the hard-line approach on the immigration issue, an issue
where he was the leading compromiser only two years before.

Closed primaries kill moderates: This
was true not only in Delaware. It was also true in D.C., where Adrian Fenty got
his hat handed to him by political hack Vincent Gray. Closed primaries are anti-democratic,
anti-independent, and a boon to the most extreme candidates.

The political establishment is not just overrated; it is hated: People blame Washington politicians (on both sides)
for the mess we are in. So why would they take their advice on how to vote? Well,
they won’t. That was the case with Mike Castle, Rick Lazio and a bunch of other
candidates this year. Sometimes getting an endorsement from a well-known
establishment politician works. This is not one of those times.

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