Today's Primaries

White men are up against it today in the handful of primaries and runoffs around the country. Let's take a quick tour:

--Mississippi. One Republican runoff here, between white guy Richard Cook and black guy Bill Marcy for the opportunity to get whupped by black Democrat Bennie Thompson. 

--North Carolina. The headliner here is the Democratic Senate primary runoff between "Cal" Cunningham and Elaine Marshall, with the winner to challenge Richard Burr, one of the few potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents. The other closely-watched runoff is in the 8th district Republicans, where freshman Democrat Larry Kissell will be vulnerable in the general if Harold Johnson wins today, and safe if crazy Tim D'Annunzio wins. In the 13th district we have another black/white GOP primary in an unwinnable district, this time with Bill Randall as the black guy and Bernie Reeves as the white guy. In the 12th, the GOP runoff is between two white guys to get crushed by Democrat Mel Watt.

--South Carolina. A bunch of Republican primary runoffs today. All eyes are on the new great GOP hope, Nikki Haley, who should easily win her runoff with Gresham Barrett and go on to become Governor. Separately there's a GOP LG runoff between Ken Ard and Bill Connor -- sadly, not the Ken Ard third from the right in this photo, but two white guys with their pants on. However, the very safe Republican 1st district features Tim Scott, who would go on to become the first black Republican congressman in eight years if he wins today's runoff. In the 6th district, there's no black candidate, but there is a woman running -- Nancy Johnson, who was the nominee two years ago -- for the right to get clobbered by Jim Clyburn. In the 4th, Republican incumbent Robert Inglis (secret relative of Portland Phoenix scribe Jeff Inglis???) is in grave danger of getting booted by some other white guy. Two white guys battle in the safe GOP 3rd, to replace Barrett: Richard Cash has been complaining that Jeff Duncan has been funded by out-of-state right-wing groups like Club for Growth; Duncan returned volley by noting that Cash has received contributions from -- horror of horrors -- Massachusetts. 

--Utah. Utah's convention system left just two major primaries to watch today. One is for US Senate, where incumbent Republican Bill Bennett was booted at the convention (and the woman running didn't make it to the final two), leaving an interesting GOP race between super-conservative Tim Bridgewater and super-super-conservative Mike Lee. In the 2nd district, incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson -- no, not Tim Matheson, who went from nearly being thrown out of college for his Delta Tau Chi hijinx, to becoming philandering Vice President of the United States -- tries to survive a primary challenge from Claudia Wright -- not Claudia Jean "C.J." Cregg, who had a one-nighter with the philandering VP.