A bit of deja vu

This election reminds me a lot of the 1991 municipal primary in Carmel, Ind.

I was a reporter for The Indianapolis News at the time, covering the north suburban communities from a bureau in Carmel.

Carmel is in Hamilton County, one of the most Republican counties in the United States. I don't think a Democrat has been elected to any municipal or county office there since before World War II. Consequently, all of the political action takes place in the May primary when Republican hopefuls slug it out for the GOP nomination and usually run unopposed in the general election in November.

Mayor Dorothy "Dottie" Hancock was running for a second term and faced a challenge from City Councilman Ted Johnson. Dottie was well-connected with the Hamilton County Republican Party, had lots of developer money behind her and looked like a sure thing to win the primary.

But the primary came at a time when the whole community was up in arms over a proposed multi-million-dollar high school expansion project. The school board had let themselves be led down the garden path by the architects and had agreed to what a lot of people thought were insanely expensive improvements to an admittedly crowded school building. It was the most bitter school building remonstrance I ever saw in my 34 years in the newspaper business.

So when the primary rolled around, a lot of really pissed off people went to the polls. They were in an ugly mood and wanted to lash out at anyone in office - never mind that the mayor had absolutely nothing to do with running the schools. As a consequence, Ted Johnson scored a stunning upset and Dottie never got her second term. Sure, some people voted for Ted because they thought he was the better candidate, but a huge number of voters cast ballots against Dottie, just because they were angry and wanted to punish an incumbent.

Fast forward to 2008.

Other than blacks who are voting their race and leftist moonbats, the people who have made Barack Hussein Obama a serious contender (I'm writing this while they're counting the eastern votes and the West Coast polls are still open) think that by voting against John McCain they are punishing George W. Bush.

Were it not for the pent-up hatred for Bush, I honestly believe this election would be a McCain blowout.