What we’ve learned so far in ’06 races

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WARWICK, R.I. - Voters always have the last word, and in the course of most elections they grab reporters by the sleeve and teach us a few lessons.

So far, at nearly the end of the primary season, voters have taught us that it is not — at least not yet — a year of broad and passionate anti-incumbent sentiment.

Most choices facing voters on Nov. 7 will be defined as Republican versus Democrat, not as incumbent versus anti-incumbent.

While Washington may be a dysfunctional, non-productive place and while Congress may have failed to solve the problem — just to cite one — of making Medicare fiscally viable for the decades ahead, voters have so far passed up the opportunity to reject anyone who has had anything to do with “the mess in Washington.”

In the Rhode Island Republican primary, Steve Laffey was seeking to unseat liberal Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a patrician charter member of the Establishment and the son of former Sen. John Chafee.

Laffey portrayed himself as a populist who would defy special interests. He railed against the big drug companies and their relentless TV advertising, against the sugar lobby and its pals in Congress, and against the teachers unions, whom he blamed for blocking private school vouchers.

It was an odd, intriguing mix for a Republican candidate, one who more and more toward the end of the campaign painted himself as non-party, anti-establishment hell-raiser.

Interactive 2006 key races The races to watch.

“Washington is a mess and it’s heading in the wrong direction,” Laffey said. “Neither the national Democrats nor the national Republicans want to see me down there.”

But it turned out independent and Republican voters didn’t want to see Laffey down there either.

Independents could vote in Tuesday’s Rhode Island primary and they helped Chafee defeat Laffey.

The legacy vote
Another lesson of Tuesday’s results is that name brands still count in some places. The Chafee name — the residual respect older voters have for John Chafee — still is worth thousands of votes to his son.

Likewise with other political dynasties, famous and not-so-famous across the nation: the Walsh franchise in Syracuse, N.Y.; the Casey “brand” in Pennsylvania, and even the Cuomo name in New York, where Andrew Cuomo, son of the former governor, won the democratic nomination Tuesday as state attorney general (a possible stepping stone to running for governor or senator some day).

Yes, a few incumbents have suffered defeats: Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski failed to win re-nomination as GOP candidate for governor last month and, more famously, Ned Lamont defeated Sen. Joe Lieberman for the Democratic Senate nomination in Connecticut last month.

But this year voters have rejected only two House incumbents by denying them their party’s nomination.

In Georgia, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney was defeated by her eccentric behavior and by a strong push by pro-Israel donors angered by her support of Arab causes.

In Michigan, social conservative Tim Walberg defeated John McCain ally and centrist Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz, another episode in the conservative-centrist battle that has a long roiled Michigan Republicans.

But almost all House and Senate incumbents have won re-nomination, with minimal exertion.

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