It's Carson v. Dickerson

The 7th Congressional District will present an interesting race of contrasting personalities between 10-year veteran Rep. Julia Carson (D) and successful automobile dealer Eric Dickerson. While both candidates are African-American, the differences end there. Rep. Carson is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who has held various elected offices dating back over three decades. Dickerson, a veteran and former GM executive, is a self-made businessman.

With strong party backing, Rep. Carson easily vanquished her 4 Democratic opponents, capturing 81% of the vote. Although the first openly gay congressional candidate bankrolled his own campaign to the tune of $200,000, it paid little in the way of dividends. Kris Kiser got just 11% of the vote, costing him nearly $50 per vote.

Dickerson, despite having no official backing from the Republican Party, stomped the GOP-slated candidate Ron Franklin by a greater than 2-1 margin. Dickerson captured 54% of the vote in this 4-way race. Franklin got only 22%, a little better than the 18% of the vote a complete unknown, John Bauer, managed to get.

While the Marion Co. Republican organization looks pathetic after tonight's results, the party is better off because Dickerson is a credible candidate who will run a serious and well-financed race against Carson. Democrats, while pleased with tonight's results, would have preferred to face Franklin. Now they have a real race on their hands.

Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy comes out looking good all around. All of his slated candidates performed as expected. He held all 9 slated judicial candidates, including a seat for his wife, despite an outsider challenge from Karen Celestino-Horseman. Although Celestino-Horseman had strong backing from the GLBT community, it wasn't enough to stop Jose Salinas, who benefitted from Marion Co.'s growing Hispanic population.

Rep. Mike Murphy, the GOP county chairman, gets his own wake-up call. He managed to capture just 60% of the vote against a little-known, under-funded candidate Brian Canter. Tonight's election proves just how far in the past Marion Co.'s once venerable county organization now is.