« Wolfson On Ferraro's Latest: "We Have Made Clear That We Reject Her Remarks" | Home | SurveyUSA: Obama Up By 8 Points In North Carolina Primary »

Democrat Carson Wins Special Election; Only 2nd Muslim Ever Elected To Congress

Indianapolis City Councilman André Carson (D) has won the special election tonight to succeed the late Congresswoman Julia Carson (D), his grandmother. With 99% reporting, Carson has defeated Republican state Rep. Jon Elrod by 54%-43%.

Interesting fact: The younger Carson is a convert to Islam, making him only the second Muslim member of Congress ever, following freshman Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).


26 Comments

| Leave a comment

Congratulation Rep. Carson.

This things not over yet. He'll need to survive in November. But he's there, and will have a shot to prove himself to his voters now. A good keeping a House seat blue in a fairly red state.

It shouldn't be quite as hard as it sounds. He won in the Indianapolis... That district and the one by Chicago are the two democratic leaning districts of the nine here in Indiana.

They say he will have a good fight in the upcoming primary and then November, but any decent Democrat still has a pretty good chance in November. What I mean by decent is somewhat well known, no scandals or outstanding minuses and pretty well liked. I figure those candidates would get weeded out in the primary anyways.

Only thing about the Indianapolis area... our Republican Governor Mitch Daniels (Bush's former White House Office of Management and Budget Director) has a higher approval than disapproval rating compared to the rest of the state where he has a higher disapproval to approval rating.

Iam sure King thinks AQ is dancing right about now.

Steve King? Just wait until Virgil Goode weighs in on this one.

OMG! It's all true! It really is a Muslim conspiracy to take over the country!


...


Or maybe most people are just pretty cool with it.

One or the other.

Interesting though that both Muslims have good American names (Carson, Ellison) while the scary brown man named Hussein is a plain old Christian.

Another Obama super delegate.

Who is this great news for!? I have an idea...

user-pic

Get Rep. King on CNN for a quote, quick.

It would appear that Carson is your next undecided superdelegate too.

States & elections won with 60% or more of the vote:
Barack Obama: 15 States + DC + VI
* Virgin Islands (89.9%)
* Idaho (79%)
* Hawaii (76%)
* Alaska (75%)
* District of Columbia (75%)
* Kansas (74%)
* Washington (68%)
* Nebraska (68%)
* Minnesota (67%)
* Colorado (67%)
* Georgia (67%)
* Illinois (65%)
* Virginia (64%)
* Maryland (62%)
* North Dakota (61%)
* Wyoming (61%)
* Mississippi (61%)

Hillary Clinton: 1 State
* Arkansas (70%)

Hey Hillary can still catch up she just has to do as good as she did in Arkansas for the rest of the states...

user-pic

Seven out of those fifteen are likely or possible Democratic victories in November--Wis, Minn, Wash, Ill, D.C., Hawaii, Maryland--and possibly Virginia especially if Jim Webb runs with Obama for VP; or maybe Colorado if it is Richardson with Obama. But Clinton would be doubtful to carry Wis, Minn (especially if Gov. Tim Pawlenty is McCain's VP), and Washington state.

Sub-text in all national reporting from here on out: black people's votes just aren't as "good" as white people's votes; they're somehow "not worth as much."

Corporate monopoly control of the opinion-shaping media is the key element for the fascists to retain control--that and rigging the elections with black-box voting machines.

We need to seriously start talking about and organizing for the general strike that will be needed when this election, too, is stolen.

Finally---if Hillary Clinton had fought against Bush and Cheney ONE-TENTH as hard as she has fought against Barack Obama, then she would have easily clinched the nomination.

if Hillary Clinton had fought against Bush and Cheney ONE-TENTH as hard as she has fought against Barack Obama, then she would have easily clinched the nomination.
interesting thought.
user-pic

Couldn't agree with you more. If it were Clinton v. Edwards, I would be leaning toward Edwards because at least he had the character to say "Yes, I voted for it. It was wrong and I'm sorry...". Something people just don't seem to get: Iraq Matters.

"Seven out of those fifteen are likely or possible Democratic victories in November"

More than that - in the 'possible' column, at least - if Hillary Clinton is not on the ticket. You're giving up too easily in some of the red states. Barack Obama is popular in most of them, and McCain is having trouble with his base. If there's not a huge Republican turnout in November - i.e. if Hillary Clinton is nowhere on the ballot - Barack Obama has a good chance of winning in a lot of surprising places.

And whether he would eke out a win or not, the Republicans would have to commit a lot of resources in these traditionally red states - resources they can't afford. Also, Democrats DO get elected to other positions in these states, and Barack Obama has long coattails. Their election would make his job of change easier, and it would also provide a bigger pool of young Democratic officeholders for our party's - and our country's - future.

Wow those 'Islamasists' must really be dancing in the streets. Then again he has a pretty American sounding name and only people with Arabic sounding names must be Muslims so he's probably not going to undermine all the gains we've made in Iraq. Whew! Scared me there for a minute.

On a serious note - Woo Hoo! This country needs more diversity of thought and perspective in our gov't. IMO.

Eric, you mean he's a Muslim...as far as you know!

well, he takes him at his word.

It would be nice if we had more secular humanists in congress.

Interesting, here in Indianapolis I've seen his campaign ads which came across to me as being very conservative, a family man who cares about his community. His ad also contained the endorsement of Senator Evan Bayh, a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter and superdelegate. There was no mention of his faith what so ever, ad wise or in the local news. I just about his faith, last night from seeing a Reuters report and here.

I'm going to have to call foul on this matter because to me looks like an obvious political stab at Carson to try and scrutinize bring down campaign. Whatever happened to freedom of religion? If a conservative state like Indiana doesn't attempt to make hay with his religion, why is it being tempted nationally into an issue?

I don't have much faith in our state anymore.

Mitch's approval rating is pretty bad, but I don't know if there is a big enough name to beat him in the General election in November.

Of the two Democrats running against him, I'm only barely familiar with one, Jill Long Thompson. The other I don't know. Jill ran against Chocola up in this part of the state and lost. Chocola lost his seat to Donnelly (D) in 2006.

user-pic

Obama was supporting his candidacy, does this mean that Obama may be picking up another superdelgate with this win?:

I'm from Indiana as well and I had no idea he was Muslim. I agree about his ads, they are very conservative. Interesting.

So when does Ferraro come out and say that he only won because he is a muslim?

Actually, this is good news for Atheists.

I'm pretty sure Atheists poll ahead of Muslims in America...

or are we still on the bottom? I confess I don't know. :(

Keeping it in the family.
A dynasty in the making.

I rather hope this doesn't get too much attention nationwide. Many people think that Barack Obama is a Muslim plant already! (They're nearly all Republicans, of course, but it might galvanize them to vote.)

And I think that we atheists are still on the bottom of the opinion polls. After all, there is only one admitted nonbeliever in Congress, and there are two Muslims now. I suppose we should be thankful that the right-wing has seen fit to emphasize Obama's father and not his mother, huh?

Leave a comment

Advertise Liberally
Share
Close Social Web Email

"To" Email Address

Your Name

Your Email Address