I don't really think yesterday's vote was a fair referendum on term limits.  Because of the timing of the TCS decision, many candidates started late (one of the ones who didn't, Mark Harmon, went on to win, as you point out).  They were behind in raising $$, behind in creating name recognition, etc.

Plus the parties would have put more effort into finding candidates for the primary if we had known term limits were an issue.

This election showed us that people will vote for a person who might be term-limited over someone they don't know enough about.  To extrapolate that to "folks are for term limits, just not for their guy" is taking too big of a step.

Also, I heard one of the Republican big-wigs point out that the hotly contested Republican Senate primary brought out a lot of Republicans yesterday.  Probably true, and definitely a plus for term-limited incumbants, most of whom were Rs.

That was me, Elaine Davis, the democratic candidate for Knox County Commission Seat 4B. I was being interviewed on WBIR by Dan Farkus. I was directly asked by Dan Farkus if the fact that a state and federal primary being held at the same time as the general election was a confusing issue for the voters. I answered in the affirmative because there were numerous voters that did not understand the disctinction between the elections. I made NO comment that my campaign was underfunded nor undersupported. On the contrary, I received over $4200 in campaign contributions and had an overwhelming number of supporteres and volunteers and their efforts show in the number of votes that I received. My opponent at last financial disclosure had received $750 and I had seen no evidence of campaigning other than signs placed at the polls on election day. I am extremely grateful for the support that I received and thank you to all of the constituents that voted for me!

"The term limit issue was but a poor player on the electoral stage in 2006. A lot of sound and fury, but mostly signifying nothing. The only true casualty of the term limit debate was Mary Lou Horner. If she had not put her candidacy into limbo (never quite withdrawing and offering support to another candidate, never quite getting fully back into the race) then she very likely would have defeated Larry Smith in the primary"

This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
MLH paid lip service and lip service only to quitting the race. She was prodded by key supporters to do that, and made an announcement that she was "suspending" her candidacy, but she continued to ask for votes until the bitter (and I DO mean bitter, because she absolutely despises R. Larry Smith)end.

I was pretty close to that race, and I do not think MLH would have won in any case. And if she'd truly dropped out, her supporters would have moved on over to James McMillan, who would very likely have won. But mary Lou could not bring herself to do that, and the thing she feared most happened -- R. Larry got the GOP nomination. She recruited an Independent write-in, Faith Tapp, who got about 5% of the vote, and succeeded in making R. Larry look like Superman.

One thing Horner is absolutely right about -- R. Larry Smith is going to do and say things that will curdle your blood. He is in a league of his own and I'm confident he will break new ground. Take that to the bank.

The second district flip/flops between parties (Madeline Rogero held the seat before David Collins).  So a decent Democratic candidate always has a good chance there.

That said, I absolutely believe David Collins put the nail in his own coffin by signing on to the term limits lawsuit, then going on tee vee and saying he only did it to get "clarification."

Nobody believed that anymore than they believed him the day after the election when he said that the didn't think term limits had anything to do with his defeat.

BTW, does anybody have a feel for what Phil Ballard will be like?  He went to Carter High with my cousins, and I took a summer school class with him in the dark ages when we were both about 16, but I haven't seen him since.