Something I bet Neil Young would remember

Is the importance of not insulting your base while running the kind of campaign David Broder would recommend.

Meet this morning's Exhibit A, Alabama's Artur Davis.

Congressman Artur Davis, the man who hopes to become Alabama's first black governor, is used to getting guff from other black leaders. First he was lambasted for being the only black member of Congress to vote against the President's health care bill. Then he failed to get the endorsements of many prominent civil rights organizations, which instead backed his opponent, Ron Sparks, the (white) state agriculture commissioner. But as the polls opened this morning, his prospects, at least in the primary, are still looking pretty good.

Davis, running right and having a House seat also led to him having substantially more money than Sparks.

So how'd that all work out in the end?

Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks won the Democratic primary with 62 percent of the vote to U.S. Rep. Artur Davis's 38 percent, with 96 percent of the precincts reporting

And, it was a bipartisan theme, as former Blue Dog turned Republican Parker Griffith ended up losing the GOP primary badly to a conservative who turned Republican when it was trendy several years ago, not just when the Teabaggers made him scared.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]