When conservative commentator Pat Buchanan garnered 37 percent of the vote as a protest candidate against the sitting Republican president in the 1992 New Hampshire primary, his showing was a clear harbinger of George H.W. Bush’s defeat nine months later.
So what are we to make of the fact that Federal Inmate #11593-051 — a k a Keith Judd, in a Texas pen since 1999 after making “violent threats” against people at the University of New Mexico — just got 41 percent of the vote against the sitting Democratic president in the West Virginia primary?
Yes, I said 41 percent. Against Barack Obama.
More data: Buchanan won 65,061 votes in New Hampshire in 1992. Keith Judd — a k a #11593-051 — won 72,459 votes in West Virginia on Tuesday night.
The state’s Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, refused to say whether he’d voted for his president or for a felon whose resumé includes this sentence under the category of Hobbies or Special Talents: “I Bowled a Sanctioned 300 Perfect Game, and Tournaments. ESP, Telling the Future.”
It’s too bad Keith Judd isn’t on the ballot in any other state, because he has great slogan possibilities going forward: “I won’t only be your president, I’ll also make your license plate,” “Yes We Can (Get Paroled)” and “Ahmadinejad better not drop the soap.”
Judd surely has the resources to run, as I gather he’s already raised a record 800 million cigarettes. In an effort to win New Jersey, he has vowed to dig the canceled rail tunnel under the Hudson River all by himself — with a spoon.
I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.
This is no joke for Obama, though.
The results in primaries from West Virginia, North Carolina and Wisconsin are ominous portents for the president about the nature of the electorate in 2012 and the relative lack of enthusiasm Democrats may be able to generate in the fall.
Aside from Judd’s showing, the most direct piece of bad news for the president came in North Carolina’s primary, where 200,000 Democrats showed up at the polls to cast a ballot for “No Preference.” That was 20 percent of the Democratic primary electorate in that key state — and their vote indicates they’ll almost certainly refuse to pull the lever for Obama in November.
Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina, one of the happy surprises for him that year, was considered an indication that we might be entering an era in American politics in which Southern states could no longer be assigned to the GOP in presidential elections.
The Obama campaign considered the state so important to its chances this November that it decided to stage the Democratic Convention in Charlotte — an unlikely venue, to say the least.
That was a disastrous miscalculation, and not only because the triumph on Tuesday night of an anti-gay-marriage referendum ensures the Obama campaign will have to work hard to prevent protests against the state during the festivities by members of the Democratic base.
It was also a mistake because those 200,000 Democrats voting against him have all but closed the door on the possibility of a second victory in North Carolina. Obama only beat John McCain by 12,000 votes there; without a stark turnaround in his fortunes, he might lose the state by 10 points this November.
(Indeed, the president’s embrace yesterday of gay-marriage rights suggests pretty strongly that he’s giving up on winning North Carolina this year.)
Finally, in Wisconsin, there was a primary preceding a special recall election to be held next month. The recall effort was organized by liberal and left-wing opponents who want to oust Gov. Scott Walker after he forced through revolutionary changes in the state’s laws on collective bargaining with public-sector unions.
Two Democrats contended to take on Walker. Together, they got 670,000 votes. Walker, running unopposed, won 640,000 votes — a total he can expect will rise radically in June, when the actual election takes place and more than 30 percent of the electorate shows up at the polls.
The same can’t be said for the Democratic challengers, whose combined total may be pretty close to the final number in June.
If Walker wins, the blow would be devastating to the public-sector unions. They’d be depressed, despondent and fearful for a future in which they’d have to contend with governors across the country who will want the kind of flexibility Walker now has — and who will find the unions a far less potent foe than they anticipated.
That kind of blow would take its toll on Obama’s re-election efforts as well, because he needs the unions working at full steam to wring every vote out of every precinct they can.
But not to worry. There’s always Keith Judd — ready, willing and able to take up the mantle. He’s due for release from jail on June 24, 2013.