flogging to victory in the primaries

after all yesterday's primary-blogging, i'm almost obligated to comment on the results. blogger has been experiencing an error this afternoon or i would've posted earlier, but that did give me some time to play around with photoshop. (if you don't get the joke, just hold on a sec...)

the biggest upset in yesterday's primary was the bob garton, who has been president pro tempore of the indiana senate for 26 years (and has been in office 36 years), has been unseated. now some might rejoice at the downfall of any prominent republican, but garton was relatively moderate, which is partly how he got deposed. the pro-life crowd has been crowing for garton's head they blame him for the failure of legislation that would have defined life as beginning at conception and forced doctors to inform patients that fetuses can feel pain (which isn't exactly true). though this wasn't his only problem.

garton was defeated by greg walker, who home-schools his children, hates abortion, and loves public flogging. (be sure to read llamajockey's comment for links to further reading about the christian flogging movement.)

in my district, julia carson easily destroyed kris kiser and her other no-name opponents, getting something like 80% of the vote. in november, she will face off against car salesman eric dickerson. dickerson's primary win is another embarrassment for the local GOP, which had its money on dickerson's opponent, ron franklin. that choice was always puzzling, considering franklin has a bit of a reputation: in 2001, franklin pled guilty to firing a handgun at a truck full of people. before that, he managed to get acquitted of drug charges on two different occasions, both times claiming the drugs in his car were not his (perhaps they belonged to his weed carriers?). and just a couple weeks ago he got in hot water over questionable comments about gays and people with disabilities.

beyond that, there were some republican upsets but not many democratic upsets. overall, democrats fared well. in three US congressional districts currently represented by republicans, democrat voters handily outnumbered republican voters, which suggests that these republican incumbents will have quite a challenge holding on to their seats come november. and in the 6th district, progressive barry welsh, who has been blogging on dailykos won his primary and will face off against mike pence.

secretary of state todd captain election" rokita and others have been boasting about the relatively low number of voting irregularities in this election. according to them, the fact that the election didn't totally fall to pieces proves that the system isn't messed up. while it's true that the number of reported regularities seems to be low, we must keep in mind that this was only a primary election with a small turnout. this was nothing more than a pilot test. the first real test of the system will come in november.

see masson's blog and advance indiana and of course news sources like the indy star and other local papers for more coverage.¶