What Message Are Primary Voters Sending?

(May 18) -- Before a single "Super Tuesday" ballot was counted, analysts were busy trying to discern the meaning of today's primary elections in Arkansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Will voters angry at the Washington establishment drive out incumbents regardless of party? How much influence will the tea party have? And what does it all mean for President Barack Obama? The pundits have already made predictions. Here's a sample of their guides to this election night.

Pennsylvania Democratic Senate Primary

Incumbent Arlen Specter's battle to keep his political career alive is the contest that "in many ways has the most resonance," according to Time's Mark Halperin. Although the Republican-turned-Democrat has the White House's endorsement, polls showed him in a dead heat with Rep. Joe Sestak, a former Navy admiral.

When Specter became a Democrat a year ago, after 28 years as Pennsylvania's Republican senator, he explained with a grin: "My change in party will enable me to be re-elected." Several commentators think that unusually candid remark could have doomed him.

Specter's "oblivious projection of entitlement and his manifest determination to hold on to his job at almost any cost have made him the embodiment of the cynical career politician," Halperin said. If the incumbent loses, he said, it will be because, as a Sestak ad charged, he became a Democrat to "save one job -- his, not yours."

The lesson, according to GOP strategist Mark McKinnon: "I can win" is not a good message.

"Good chance Specter will pay the price for making the race about his hopes rather than the voters," McKinnon predicted in The Daily Beast.

If Specter loses, it will be hard for the White House to blame it on a weak candidate -- as it did with recent Democratic defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza said.

"White House officials at the highest level played an integral role in Specter's party switch and did everything they could to convince Sestak to reconsider his bid," Cillizza noted. The president also did campaign ads and made appearances with Specter -- although he decided against a last-minute visit to Pennsylvania on Monday.

Arkansas Democratic Senate Primary

"In a year of anti-incumbent and anti-establishment sentiment, Sen. Blanche Lincoln may survive not because she distanced herself from Washington, but because she knew how to use her experience to her advantage," said Slate's John Dickerson.

Lincoln got the Obama administration's backing but portrayed herself as an independent who has used her power as chairman of the Agriculture Committee to help her state's farmers. She also pushed for regulations on Wall Street that were even tougher than the White House proposed, Dickerson noted. But her votes on health care reform and climate change made her a target of unions and liberal groups, which threw their support behind Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. D.C. Morrison is the third candidate in the contest.

Halter "does not have a legislative voting record -- a godsend in this political environment," The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny observed on The Caucus blog.

Today's vote in Arkansas might not settle anything. Politico reported Halter's campaign has "all but acknowledged" that its goal is to keep Lincoln from getting more than 50 percent of the vote, forcing a June 8 runoff.

Kentucky Republican Senate Primary

McKinnon described the fight to replace retiring Sen. Jim Bunning as today's "purest test for outsiders." Dickerson called it the "most interesting race, theatrically" -- with Rand Paul, son of libertarian-minded Rep. Ron Paul -- carrying on "the family tradition of upsetting the Republican Party order of things."

The younger Paul won endorsements from Sarah Palin and tea party groups, while top GOP figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky got behind Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Polls showed Grayson trailing badly going into today's election.

"If Paul wins, there will now be three high-profile examples of the new contours of the GOP landscape," Dickerson wrote -- citing Sen. Bob Bennett's ouster in Utah and Charlie Crist's switch from Republican to independent in the Florida Senate race.

"... the populist conservative tide in GOP politics is more powerful. Now we have to wait until November to find out how the Tea Party message plays with independent and moderate voters," Dickerson added.

Throw the Bums Out?

To Politics Daily's David Corn, today's elections highlight confusion in the electorate. Angry voters want action from Washington, but polls show most don't want one party to control Congress and the White House. Corn called that "a recipe for squabbling, not action."

"... if an anti-incumbent wave takes out more Democrats than Republicans, it will likely be harder for the White House and Congress to produce policy initiatives that address any of the current challenges. In fact, the odds are there will be more of the partisan bickering and gamesmanship that many Americans say they cannot stand," he contended. "Throwing out bums this fall will not make D.C. more functional. It will make the capital more factional -- and ineffectual."

Slate's Dickerson had no doubt this would be a "throw the bums out" election. The only thing voters will make clear today, he said, is "just how far they want to throw them."

Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics disagreed. He argued that the country never really has "generalized anti-incumbent" elections. More likely, he said, is an election that's generally anti-liberal, or specifically anti-Democrat.

Which will this one be? Trende said one race today that isn't a primary could provide the answer.

There's a special election in Pennsylvania's heavily Democratic 12th Congressional District to fill the seat of the late Democrat Rep. John Murtha. If Democrat Mark Critz scores a solid victory, "it could be a good sign that a generalized anti-Democratic mood isn't materializing," Trende predicted. But if Critz loses or barely beats Republican Tim Burns, he warned, "it would be an ominous sign" that Democrats are on pace to lose more than 60 seats in Congress this fall.