Democrats Debate Rice's Primary Vote

Some of the state's most vocal Democrats are weighing in on Senator Andrew Rice's lackluster showing in Tuesday's Democratic primary for the U. S. Senate, joining coffee shop and watercooler discussion among political junkies.

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Rice got 59 percent of the vote against Jim Rogers, the perennial Midwest City candidate who didn't campaign and spent no money, and lost 19 counties, many of them key Democrat counties, to Rogers.

The Democrat discussion is taking place on the Democrats of Oklahoma Community Forum, http://www.demookie.com/.

The posting thread was opened by a forum administrator, Tim Reese, who posted The McCarville Report Online's original story pointing out how poorly Rice ran in some counties.

That post was met by this, from "mccurtaincountydemocrat" (Jane Luttrell, another forum administrator): "McCarville is...full of shit...." (Jane's no genteel Southern lady, is she? Disappointing...I've thought highly of her.) Other than that, she offered no explanation of how Rogers beat Rice in her own Democrat-dominated county.

Activist (and way-out liberal) Chris Heldenbrand added, "I thought about starting a thread entitled 'McCarville has strange, unhealthy fixation on Andrew Rice', but figured that would just encourage him. I'm not convinced the primary results mean diddly squat. Andrew knew he had an uphill battle for name recognition when he started. 'Jim Rogers' has been on the statewide ballot before, so low-information voters probably figured he was the one they had heard of. Andrew's going to have to work his ass off between now and November to beat Inhofe, but he knew that, too. By the way, McCarville quotes some Republican hack as saying Rice spent $717,000 on his primary campaign. Bullshit! Had he watched the ads, he would have seen they were directed specifically at Inhofe, not Rogers. Andrew's been conducting a general election campaign from the git-go. Just more McCarville BS, as he watches what little credibility he had as a journalist go down the crapper. Personally, I suspect he's a paid shill." (Nice try, Chris; wrong, but nice try. Credibility? Try reading what your fellow Democrats are saying. Even Ivan Holmes agrees with our assessment; he says he thought Rogers would get 20 percent. He got DOUBLE that. And Chris: We quoted no "Republican hack" about Rice's money; the figure came from his own FEC reports.)

More rational posters addressed the Rice issue head on. Wrote "TulsaTrialLawyer" after saying he could care less what appears on TMRO, "giving up 40% of the vote to a dude who did nothing but put his name on the ballot would worry me if I were the candidate. That guy got 77,000 votes. It's hard to attribute that to 'low information' voters just voting for 'a name' or Republicans registered as Democrats. I sure don't know how or why that happened, but if I am the nominee, I see 77,000 of my own people voting for a non-entity and I am shaking up my frickin' staff."

Wrote "boomersun": "...I like Rice as much as you do, but let's be honest with ourselves in saying that Rice should have done much better than he did. Rice, who has spent considerable time campaigning across the state and airing television commercials ran against a person who did not raise any money, spend any money or do any campaigning, yet Rice only received just under 60% of the vote. This is not good. Most of the national political experts have called this senate race as 'safe GOP' seat and I kind of believe it...I really like Rice, but after watching videos of him meeting cowboys at rodeos and diners, I'm beginning to think that many voters just won't be receptive to him."

In a second string of posts on the subject, "dolebludger" wrote, "Another factor may be at play here. Almost all Democrats in this state were convinced Rice was going to win the primary. And in many precincts, counties, and districts, there were few (if any) other primary races on the Democratic ballot. I fear that too many Democratic voters just stayed home and didn't vote, and this fear is born out by the fact that voter turn out was the lowest since 1952! There's a lesson to be learned here by all Democrats. Go vote, even if you think your candidate is a 'sure thing.' You don't just want your candidate to win -- you want that candidate to win big!"

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