Clean Sweep Update

Well, yesterday's primaries were the first fruit of PACleanSweep, the group mobilizing to throw the bums out. Specifically, the bums who bent the state constitution last year to give themselves a pay raise. Some background here. [Holy cow! That's the #8 Google hit when you search "PA Legislature"!]

The biggest news is that the top two Republicans in the (R-led) Senate lost. The Senate is R by 55-45, the State House by 110-93, meaning we need to pick up 6 Senate seats and 9 in the House (hey, we already got one in the Senate!). It appears that 11 Rs in the House and 4 Ds lost their primaries, including my own rep.

Obviously, Rs who lose to angry voters in primary races are usually being replaced by more conservative Rs (bad), but that also means an opening for Ds in the general election. As I've written before, PA is a funny state, consistently blue in Presidential elections, and more often than not for gov., but the leg. has been red for years, mostly due to "Alabama in the middle." But some of that Alabama is rust belt, and with the right candidates, the Rs aren't always safe. ortcutt at Kos has an extremely helpful post with maps showing who represents what. Note that one of the leaders thrown out represented a district just east of the big blue swath in mid-state. We don't need to take either house this year (although I'd like to think that Dem voters will turn out big in Nov.), but we need to chip away if we're going to hold a house in time for redistricting after '10.

Some other good info here.