Good news is Jon Tester won the Democratic primary in the Mondata senate race. He's in a great position to become Democratic senator from Montana, beating corrupt Conrad Burns. Tester is a solid progressive.
And Phil Angelides, generally the CA gubernatorial candidate supported by progressives, won his race and will be facing Arnold Schwarzenegger in November
Disappointing news. Busby lost the race to replace crooked Cunningham in a close race where she got 45% to her opponent's 49%. This was no accident. When she made a slip of the tongue remark about being helped by non-registered voters, the mainstream media pulled a "Howard Dean" high repetition attack on her, replaying the story over and over and ove again. We can expect this kind of partisan media action routinely come November.
Peace candidate Marci Winograd lost to incumbent Jane Harman. Sadly, it appears that a huge amount of progressive effort to portray Harman as a pro-war failed to do the job. Harman won 62 to 38%. The challenge for Winograd, as it was for Chuck Pennacchio, in PA was the Democratic machine, which endorsed Harman. Machine politics wins easy races where the Democratic odds are strong, but overall the Democratic machine, generally a tool controlled by the right wing side of the democratic party, is bad for the party, bad for progressives. It's essential that progressive work at the ward level to garner committeeperson seats that have voting power when endorsements are made. Busby is already talking about going after the seat again in November.
In New Jersey, senator Bob Menendez handily defeated his opponent, 5 to 1. The Republican senate candidate will be moderate Tom Kean jr., son of the popular Jersey former governor.
Let's hope the Tester win is a harbinger of progressive senate victories, with a November Crescendo with Jon Tester, Bernie Sanders and Ned Lamont all lined up to lead a new democratic party in the senate.
