[Congressional Quarterly lists five Democratic House members “facing serious primary challenges”. Is it a coincidence that three out of these five are consigners onto H. Res. 333 to impeach Vice President Cheney and a fourth is its author, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio? Is the Democratic Party nationally conspiring with Republicans to keep Cheney and Bush from facing justice?]
CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE [daliy e-mail subscribed to by IFP]
Monday, Oct. 1, 2007
FIVE HOUSE DEMOCRATS FACE SERIOUS PRIMARY CHALLENGES
Despite public criticism of Congress as a whole, few incumbents are
defeated in general elections, and even fewer lose primary races against
members of their own party.
But primary contests can be the only meaningful outlet for voter
discontent in congressional districts that are gerrymandered, as so many
are these days, to ensure that one party or the other will always win the
general election.
Such lopsided districts dominate the list of 16 across the nation
identified by CQPolitics.com as featuring contests for 2008 in which U.S.
House incumbents face unusually vigorous primary challenges.
There are five Democratic incumbents facing serious primary challenges.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., has not one but three primary challengers in
the 3rd District, which includes chunks of Chicago and its Cook County
suburbs to the west: Palos Hills Mayor Jerry Bennett, Cook County
prosecutor Mark Pera and local attorney and Army reservist Jim Capparelli.
Rep. Albert R. Wynn, D-Md., is in a 4th District rematch against lawyer
and political activist Donna Edwards, who took 46 percent of the vote
against him in 2006 in a black-majority Democratic stronghold just outside
Washington, D.C. There is a third candidate in the race as well: real
estate broker George E. Mitchell. Last year, a different third candidate
took just under 4 percent of the vote.
Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., who represents the Brooklyn-based 10th
District, could face a challenge from Kevin Powell, who filed a statement
of organization with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in early August
but has not officially announced as a candidate. Powell identifies himself
as “a political activist, poet, journalist, essayist, hip-hop historian,
public speaker, and entrepreneur,” and was a cast member on the first
season of the MTV reality-television show Real World.
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, who is making his second longshot
presidential bid, faces a contest closer to home in the 10th District,
which encompasses west side Cleveland and its suburbs. Challenger Rosemary
Palmer says Kucinich has missed too many important votes in his quixotic
bid for the White House effort.
Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., is in a faceoff with airline executive Nikki
Tinker, who came in second in the crowded, 15-person 2006 primary contest
in the Memphis-based 9th District. Cohen is white, while the district is
majority black. Although Cohen has liberal views and a history of
receiving support from African-American voters dating to his long state
Senate tenure, some black activists argue that black representation should
be restored to the 9th District, which Harold E. Ford Jr. held before his
unsuccessful bid for the Senate last year.