In a stinging rebuke to the political status quo, voters across the nation cast their ballots mainly
in yesterday’s primary elections.
The reigning political narrative before yesterday was that
incumbents were on shaky ground
. But in state after state, primary voters expressed their desire to see a different storyline, voting to return familiar faces to office.
For an electorate disgusted with the handling of the BP oil spill and anxious about a still-shaky economy, the incumbents-are-doomed story had become yet another element of politics as usual. The anti-anti-incumbent candidates rode this wave of mistrust to one victory after another.
“Anti-incumbent wave rolls on,” Politico had reported in its banner headline, as the polls were closing. But in the span of a few hours, between the casting of the votes and the counting of them, the voters had changed their minds. Rejection of rejection was the ultimate rejection.
By morning, Politico had crowned the
: “The center fights back.”
