I‘ve written before about the effort by the Democratic Netroots to defeat elected Democrats who fail to toe the liberal line. Yesterday was an important day in that effort, as many liberal blogs and activists had targeted for defeat Democratic Congressman Dan Lipinski. The effort fell short however, as Lipinski coasted to renomination by a margin of 53-26.
The Illinois primary also featured the first credible primary challenge to an incumbent in this year’s elections – though it didn’t turn out to be very close. Two-term Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski took 53 percent of the vote to easily outpoll a divided field of three challengers that included local prosecutor Mark Pera (26 percent), lawyer Jim Capparelli (12 percent) and local mayor Jerry Bennett (9 percent). Most of the stir in the primary campaign was caused by Pera and the liberal “netroots” activists he attracted. Pera criticized Lipinski – a somewhat moderate House Democrat – as insufficiently opposed to the Iraq war, and also attacked the incumbent’s opposition to abortion rights.
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