Quick thought on primary results

It’s 3:48 a.m. and I’ve just finished up all the Radio Iowa broadcast and web-related stuff, so I am dashing off one quick thought about the primary results before heading home.  If you look at the Democratic gubernatorial primary and the Democratic race for the Ag Secretary nomination, one could conclude that Tom Vilsack holds little sway with members of his own party.

Vilsack’s economic development director, Mike Blouin, staged a furious rally in the ninth inning of this primary stretch but came up short.  While Vilsack and Blouin repeatedly made public comments that Vilsack had not encouraged Blouin to enter the race and Vilsack never publicly endorsed Blouin in ths campaign, party insiders knew Vilsack’s mark on the primary ballot was in Blouin’s box.

Vilsack did endorse in the Secretary of Agriculture primary, announcing his backing for long-time aide Dusky Terry in a statehouse news conference a couple of months ago.  The O’Brien upset of Terry was the big surprise of the evening.  But her name is a much more generic looking name on the ballot to folks who had no idea who either one of the candidates were.  Lots of generic names trump weird ones all the time in elections.  Chuck Allison over Bob Dopt, for example. Consider Tom Miller and Mike Fitzgerald — two long-time statewide office-holders with pretty generic looking names.

So Tom Vilsack, potential presidential candidate, I would guess is reviewing these primary results closely as they could be clear signals of problems he’d have in an Iowa Caucus campaign.