SARAH PALIN and John McCain, who headed the Republican ticket in the 2008 presidential election, were the biggest winners in Tuesday’s primaries, 70 days before all-important mid-term elections that will renew the entire US house of representatives and one-third of the senate.
Their relative influence has been reversed, with Palin playing kingmaker in contests from Florida to Alaska, and McCain indebted to his former vice-presidential running mate for her support in fending off a challenger from the far right, populist Tea Party movement.
By the time ballots were counted yesterday morning, Palin could revel in confirmed victories for four candidates who she endorsed in Arizona and Florida, with an apparent fifth victory in her native Alaska.
Palin and the California-based Tea Party Express may have unseated Lisa Murkowski, one of the most powerful Senate Republicans, in the Republican primary in Alaska.
The Tea Party earlier triumphed in Nevada and Kentucky on a platform opposing taxation and government spending.
In league with Palin, the Tea Party propelled Joe Miller, a virtually unknown lawyer from Fairbanks who attended West Point and Yale and won a Bronze star in the 1991 Gulf War, to a surprise 1,960-vote lead over Murkowski, the scion of an Alaskan political family who have repeatedly clashed with Palin.
Definitive results will not be known for two weeks, when all absentee ballots have been counted.
Murkowski enjoyed a seemingly unassailable 37-point lead in an opinion poll last month, and far outspent Miller. Buoyed up by $600,000 (€473,000) in advertising money from the Tea Party, Miller portrayed Murkowski as the heir to a dynasty, and a pro-abortion liberal.
Palin made pre-recorded, automated "robocalls" on Miller's behalf. "I am absolutely certain that [Palin's support] was pivotal," Miller told the Anchorage Daily News.
Murkowski blamed Palin for her probable defeat, saying, “I think she’s out for her own self-interest. I don’t think she’s out for Alaska’s interest.”
In Arizona, Palin played the opposite role, supporting McCain, the establishment Republican incumbent, over his Tea Party challenger.
McCain beat the conservative radio talk show host and former Congressman JD Hayworth by 57 per cent to 31 per cent, only by spending $20 million and veering sharply to the right.
Immigration is the main issue in Arizona, and McCain matched Hayworth’s anti-immigrant fervour. McCain alienated Hispanic supporters by dropping comprehensive immigration reform to urge the federal government to “finish the danged fence” on the Mexican border.
He supported SB1070, Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, much of which was suspended by a US district judge last month. Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the Bill last April, won the Republican primary with 87 per cent of the vote.
At first glance, McCain’s victory looked like the emergence of an “establishment fights back” trend in a year when two sitting senators (three if Murkowski’s loss is confirmed) have been defeated in primaries.
US voters are angry with incumbents and Washington, but are also reluctant to embrace newcomers.
Most worrying for Democrats, Republicans have shown their enthusiasm by turning out in far greater numbers in primaries. President Barack Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs suffered the wrath of house speaker Nancy Pelosi last month when he admitted the Democrats could lose the house.
In Florida, a career politician, Representative Kendrick Meek, defeated a property speculator who earned millions in the subprime crisis for the Democratic Senate nomination.
The opposite occurred in the Republican gubernatorial primary, where a millionaire former hospital executive, Rick Scott, defeated the state’s attorney general.
In the race for Florida attorney general, Pam Bondi, a prosecutor, won the Republican nomination with unexpected last-minute support from Palin. The women met at an anti-abortion breakfast in Washington in May, where they discussed Down syndrome, which affects both their families.
Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, a pillar of the Irish-American community, easily won the Democratic nomination there.