The Aug. 26 primary election should once and for all put an end to the lie that the Vero Beach barrier island is overwhelmingly composed of knee-jerk Indian River Neighborhood Association supporters.

Just as in Indian River County as a whole, returns from the precincts on the barrier island showed IRNA-backed candidates trailing badly in the two out of three County Commission races that they lost.

Prior to this election, the IRNA had been 11-for-11 in contested elections since 2006, and a mythology had developed that the anti-change orgination -- which had its origins on the barrier island before expanding to the mainland several years ago -- is the voice of residents of 32963.

The primary election conclusively proved otherwise.

Honey Minuse, the immediate past president of IRNA who ran for the District 5 seat which actually represents part of the beachside community, managed to scrape out only one-third of the votes cast by zip code 32963 Republicans.

Bob Solari, who won the Republican nomination for the District 5 seat virtually assuring his election in November, polled 1,931 votes in Vero oceanside precincts, compared to 1,826 votes for Minuse and 1,735 for incumbent Sandra Bowden.

The third-place finish by Bowden, the only one of the three who actually lives on the barrier island and a successful candidate for a variety of offices over the past two decades, showed how far she has fallen from grace over the past four years.

But the combined vote for Solari and Bowden -- more than double the vote total for IRNA-backed Minuse -- also illustrates the absurdity of the contention that residents of zip code 32963 all mindlessly do the IRNA's bidding.

As further proof, barrier island residents also strongly supported the reelection of County Commissioner Wesley Davis in District 1, giving him 3,090 votes to 2,618 for IRNA-backed challenger Susan Boyd.

The only bright spot for the IRNA on the barrier island was in the District 3 race, where its most-favored County Commissioner, Gary C. Wheeler, polled 3,351 votes just barely besting the combined totals of principal challenger Gary T. Parris, who finished with 2,539 votes, and Bea Gardiner, who trailed in third with 744.

The election outcome has to be a huge disappointment to the leaders of the IRNA, and the organization's hopes of getting an early vote on charter government for Indian River County on the ballot.

With both Minuse and Boyd going down in flames, the IRNA will continue to lack the third vote the organization needs to get charter government approved by the Indian River County Commission and placed on the ballot.

If two-out-of-three, as the song goes, "ain't bad," the one-out-of-three performance by Indian River Neighborhood Association-backed candidates on Tuesday gives the lie to the organization's reputation as an unstoppable beach-based political juggernaut.