Looking across the Democratic board (sorry, I haven't been following the Republican battles much so this won't apply to those primaries) it appears that voters went with the status quo.
The victories for the "establishment":
Linda Smyth, the face of the Fairfax Board this election, won as well. Although not by much - more on this further down.
Johnny Joannou defended himself against Henry Light with ease.
Del. Bowling easily held his position against challenger McGlothlin.
Frank O'Leary won in a landslide.
The victories for "change":
And a few didn't say much about establishment vs. change:
Simmons defeated Meyer in (I believe) the lowest turnout race.
Implications?
1. Gerry Connolly Wins.
In NOVA, a vote for the establishment was a validation of Gerry Connolly and his programs. While many will (rightly, IMO) say that the close fight between Smyth and Hall should send a loud and clear message to Connolly, I believe the reality is that no such message will be received. This isn't a slam on Connolly, it is simply political reality: winner takes all.
It took everything Smyth/Connolly had to pull off a victory. They massively outspend Hall. They flooded the district with positive mailers and very dirty negative mailers. Connolly had to step in and campaign for Linda and push his political machine hard to get out votes. They had to lean on the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce and even Governor Kaine for endorsements and support.
And in the end that effort was victorious. Depending on your point of view, it either showed the Connolly establishment could defend itself against a strong attack or has the support of the majority of people. Or both. Regardless, Connolly is free to interpret this victory as a green light to continue to follow his plan. Close call, but without a Hall victory no message will be received and little will change.
2. The Fall of the Bloggers
RK endorsements went three for six - not bad but certainly not good. Take a closer look and it looks all bad: two of those endorsements victories went to almost sure things (O'Leary and Bowling). Which leaves the RK endorsements at one out of four. Our biggest push recently was in the Hall/Smyth race and I feel we did have a strong positive influence for Charlie, but as noted above, it's winner take all and we didn't win.
Other bloggers here at RK and other sites, most notably NLS, threw heavy support behind Galligan. That's not to say every blogger supported Galligan, but from online polls, diaries, and comments it's clear a greater number of bloggers were Galligan supporters. Galligan lost big.
Same sort of argument for Meyer, although at a subdued level compared to the Barker/Galligan race. Morris had more online supporters than Simmons yet the end result wasn't close with Simmons taking a 20+ point victory.
And I've heard that even on the Republican side, some of the candidates the rightwing blogs supported have lost.
Is it all over for the blogs? Are the 2005 and 2006 victories for Kaine and Webb to be the high point of the blogosphere?
Of course not. But the message I see in this is that the blogosphere must seek to engage a greater portion of the general voting population. If we remain a political club that primarily speaks amongst itself it will be very difficult to get our grassroots messages to the majority of voters - which to me is one of the core goals of the independent political blogosphere. While that is much, much easier said than done, it is one of the most important things we as bloggers can pursue.
And now it's time to regroup and get ready for the bigger battle in November. While many of us may be disappointed in these results, it will be a much bigger disappointment if we can't take back some Republican seats in the Senate or House. As much as I don't like the fact that certain people won yesterday (you know who I'm talking about), I'm very much looking forward to working with Chap, Janet O., Margi, George, Rex, and the many other Democrats throughout Virginia who will need our help keeping their seats or taking seats from Republicans.
The overall point was a very basic observation that voters voted in favor of the establishment. For each race you'd have to determine whether you feel it's a good thing or bad thing.
Personally, I think we needed change in Providence so the establishment victory was a bad thing. Same with the Light/Joannou race. And all Dems should be cheering for change when McEachin pushed out Lambert.
On the flip side, I believe the establishment was the right choice in the O'Leary race and I'm glad he won. Same with Bowling.
As for other establishment candidates, like Barker, I wasn't strongly in favor or against. I liked both and took issue with certain positions of both. So to me, that one is a wash in terms of "is the establishment good"? But I know a good number of bloggers favored Galligan and the change he represented - so to them the establishment was bad.
Okay, that was glib. Seriously, though, it looks like the Republicans went very much to the right in several races. Is that going to work for them?
Their voters want ideological purity, our voters just want to win.
As for the media, it covers whatever draws the most viewers/readers. If consumers demanded it, the media would have to provide it. It's hard to draw a broad audience for TV or the Post with local contests, so it's left to the local dailies/weeklies.
Let me ask this -- if I can pay my taxes online, why don't I vote online for primaries like this? Turnout would at least triple.
If people don't care enough to go to their polling place and vote, I'm not sure I care that they're not voting. In any case, I seriously doubt that turnout would triple.
Now the person who said we've got to move this from a political club to a position where we connect with the voters. Good idea. Now radio talk shows like Limbaugh, keep in mind that people are in two camps. The dittoheads who turn it on for the news and the swath of people who tune to it for entertainment value, but who don't march in lockstep. Just my thoughts.