Primaries stir political pot

WASHINGTON —

Longtime Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, who switched parties in hopes of fending off a challenger from the Republican right, lost the Democratic primary Tuesday and Democrat Mark Critz won a special House election to fill out the term of the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha in another race with national significance.

In another primary seen as a reflection of the electorate's unsettled mood, political novice Rand Paul rode support from tea-party activists to a Republican rout in Kentucky on Tuesday. In a Democratic primary that commanded far less national attention, Attorney General Jack Conway defeated Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and will face Paul in the Senate race in the fall.

On the busiest night of the primary season to date, Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln led in her bid for nomination to a third term but was forced into a potentially debilitating runoff June 8 against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.

Taken together, the results were indisputably unkind to the political establishments of both parties. But any attempt to read into the results a probable trend for the fall campaign was hazardous — particularly given Critz's victory over Republican Tim Burns to succeed Murtha in Congress.

Specter fell to two-term Rep. Joe Sestak, who spent three decades in the Navy before entering politics. Sestak was winning 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Specter. He told cheering supporters his triumph marked a "win for the people over the establishment, over the status quo, even over Washington, D.C."

Sestak's campaign calling card was a television commercial that showed former President George W. Bush saying he could count on Specter, then a Republican, and then had Specter saying he had switched parties so he could win re-election. Once unleashed, it coincided with a steady decline in Specter's early lead in the polls, and signaled the end of the political line for the most durable politician of his generation in Pennsylvania.

Former Rep. Pat Toomey won the Republican nomination and will run against Sestak in the fall in what is likely to be one of the marquee races in the battle for control of the Senate.

Paul's victory was certain to add Kentucky to that list.

"I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back," said the 47-year-old eye surgeon making his first run for office.

But the same energy that led Paul to victory presented problems that the Republicans will have to handle carefully in November, when control of both houses of Congress will be at stake.

Paul has said he might not support his fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Mitch McConnell, for a new term as party leader. And no sooner had Tuesday's results been posted than Richard Viguerie, a longtime conservative warrior, suggested McConnell step aside.

The far-flung races took place a little less than five months before the midterm elections in which Republicans will challenge Democrats for control of both houses of Congress.

President Obama backed incumbents in his party's races, but despite the stakes for his legislative agenda the White House insisted he was not following the results very closely.

High unemployment, an economy just now emerging from the worst recession in generations and Congress' decision to bail out Wall Street giants in 2008 all added to voters' unease, polls said. In a survey released shortly before the polls closed, ABC said voter expectations for the economy had turned optimistic for the first time in six years. At that, only 33 percent of those polled said so in the network's polling, compared with 29 percent saying the opposite.

In Oregon, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden faced little opposition for nomination to a third full term.

In Kentucky, Paul had 59 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Grayson, who had been recruited to the race by McConnell.

Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul, a former GOP presidential contender, countered with endorsements — and the political energy that flowed along with them — from tea-party activists, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, a conservative eager to push his party rightward in advance of the broader fall campaign.

The race marked the third time that tea-party activists, a collection of disparate groups without a central political structure, have placed their stamp on GOP races.

Their votes at a Utah Republican convention helped deny a spot on the ballot to Sen. Bob Bennett, a conservative judged as not sufficiently so. And their backing helped propel one-time longshot Republican Marco Rubio to a lead in the pre-primary polls in Florida's Senate race, prompting Gov. Charlie Crist to quit the party and run as an independent.