Two Other Bits From Ohio

The night of the long knives.

Two down ballot primary races worth noting.

Jean Schmidt, known as Mean Jean, lost to Brad Wenstrup.  Schmidt was notorious for calling Jack Murtha a coward for advocating a withdrawal from Iraq.  Murtha was a bloated corruption monkey, but the remarks were beyond accepted House decorum.  And she had other moments of similar rhetorical nastiness.  She was Michelle Bachman without the charisma and message discipline.

Wenstrup ran to her right, a tactic that was only thought possible if you applied Zeno's paradox.  First, the GOP was able to find someone MORE right wing than Jean Schmidt and then run that guy and win.

The other result is that Wizened Garden Gnome Dennis Kucinich lost to Marcy Kaptur in a redistricting cage match in a Democratic vote sink.  Kucinich is probably as far to the left as any Democratic member of Congress.  He lost to an anti-choice but economic populist Kaptur.  The seat is safely Democratic, but this will free up time for Kucinich to search for UFOs and hang out with his ridiculously hot wife.

So in the two significant primaries last night, the GOP moved farther right and the Democrats moved farther right.