A Kossack won the CA primary for Congress

But, it's not who you think.

First off, this one did hurt.  Kossack Ron Shepston (CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream) finished third in the CA-42 primary, finishing behind a virulent anti-immigrant Minuteman-type guy who for some reason filed as a Democrat, and eventual winner Ed Chau.

But in a turn of events even us bloggers weren't expecting, Kossack Marta Jorgensen (pcmedia) won her 3-way primary race in CA-24!  (She had originally announced her campaign on DailyKos back in March.)

This was really unexpected to me, especially after the news back in April that Jorgensen had actually dropped out of the race.  But then, I never saw the report that Jorgensen jumped back in the race three weeks later.

And now, she has surprisingly won her primary!  She may have been the most surprised of all.  :-)

Apparently powered by the appeal of the word "educator," a teacher and former nurse from Solvang appeared headed to an unexpected win in the three-way race for the Democratic nomination in the 24th Congressional District.

Marta Jorgensen, reached by phone Tuesday evening and informed of the early returns, was incredulous. "You're kidding! That's a pretty amazing thing."

For three weeks during the campaign, Jorgensen had suspended campaigning and announced she was supporting Jill Martinez, a developer of affordable housing and the Democratic nominee from two years ago.

But, saying she thought Martinez and Oak Park insurance agent Mary Pallant were not paying enough attention to Santa Barbara County voters, Jorgensen jumped back in.

"I was certain I had shot myself in the foot on that," she said. "I thought maybe I'd get 8 or 10 percent."

Instead, she won with 46.1% of the vote.  Jill Martinez finished with 31.6%, and Mary Pallant received 22.3%.

So while we shed a tear for Ron's campaign, let us toast a fellow Kossack, who'll now be challenging Elton Gallegly, your typical do-nothing rubber-stamping Bush Republican, in November in this R+5 district.

And yes, because someone's going to bring it up, some notable Kossacks had endorsed and were working for Mary Pallant in this primary.  But just as we need to come together to make sure Obama enters the White House, and not McCain, we need to get behind Marta Jorgensen to help send her to Congress.  Same goes for Ed Chau, who's running against the incredibly corrupt Gary Miller.  As one of Pallant's supporters wrote about the presidential primary, "let's unite and move on".  The same applies in these Congressional races, regardless of who you may have supported in the primary.

So help out Ed Chau and Marta Jorgensen take on these entrenched Republicans in November.