My two cents
Nov. 4th, 2009 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bruortonWith all the pundity sorts chattering about yesterday's elections (NJ and VA governor, and the wacko special for Congress in upstate NY) this morning, I can't help wanting to give my take on it, because oddly I haven't heard anyone else say this: the most important message is not for Obama -- it's for Republicans.
I know, everyone whose job is to fill their time slot with chatter wants it to be a referendum on Obama. And yes, he made an effort to help out in NJ -- less so in VA, where the Democrat (Deeds) didn't want his help in the summer when the shine was coming off, then really really did want his help once Deeds started to flail. And yesirree, Republicans won both races. As the party out of the White House typically has done in these states; Dems won them while Bush was around, and so on going back at least to Reagan.
National trends aside, from what I saw of the Dems in these races they were poor campaigners (esp. Deeds). That shouldn't negate, however, the fact that the Republicans won big in VA in all sorts of races besides the top one, and that they won the top job in a blue state like NJ even though the opposition to the weak incumbent was slightly fragmented.
Why? Well, elections express the choice not of everyone, but of everyone who shows up. And it's pretty clear that Democratic enthusiasm, and therefore turnout, was way down. Voters under 30 were a powerful Democratic force last year, for instance, but this year went from around 20% of the voters to 10% or less. If there's a message for Democrats to consider for next year, it's that truism that they've got to deliver on what their voters were hoping for last year. If not, they stand lose that big chunk of "swing voters" from their base who can swing between caring enough to vote, and not caring enough.
But the message I mentioned for Republicans? It's the choice in front of them. In NY-23, a third-party right-winger got the celebrity treatment (read: Sarah Palin et al) and funding (read: $1 million from the Club for Growth) and managed to use it to clobber a socially liberal Republican (of the sort that used to be common in the Northeast) into actually dropping out of the race even though she had the "official" party backing. As a consequence, a Democrat managed to win a Congressional district that Republicans have held continuously since the 19th century.
Yet more moderate Republicans won -- narrowly in bluish NJ, and decisively in purplish VA -- by playing down their socially conservative views and focusing on nuts and bolts sorts of practical issues. You'd think a party looking for the way to win back some real power in next year's mid-terms would seize on this sort of moderation and focus on getting something done as the key, rather than catering to the uncompromisingly far right party-purity faction.
But honestly, alas, I wouldn't count on it.
I know, everyone whose job is to fill their time slot with chatter wants it to be a referendum on Obama. And yes, he made an effort to help out in NJ -- less so in VA, where the Democrat (Deeds) didn't want his help in the summer when the shine was coming off, then really really did want his help once Deeds started to flail. And yesirree, Republicans won both races. As the party out of the White House typically has done in these states; Dems won them while Bush was around, and so on going back at least to Reagan.
National trends aside, from what I saw of the Dems in these races they were poor campaigners (esp. Deeds). That shouldn't negate, however, the fact that the Republicans won big in VA in all sorts of races besides the top one, and that they won the top job in a blue state like NJ even though the opposition to the weak incumbent was slightly fragmented.
Why? Well, elections express the choice not of everyone, but of everyone who shows up. And it's pretty clear that Democratic enthusiasm, and therefore turnout, was way down. Voters under 30 were a powerful Democratic force last year, for instance, but this year went from around 20% of the voters to 10% or less. If there's a message for Democrats to consider for next year, it's that truism that they've got to deliver on what their voters were hoping for last year. If not, they stand lose that big chunk of "swing voters" from their base who can swing between caring enough to vote, and not caring enough.
But the message I mentioned for Republicans? It's the choice in front of them. In NY-23, a third-party right-winger got the celebrity treatment (read: Sarah Palin et al) and funding (read: $1 million from the Club for Growth) and managed to use it to clobber a socially liberal Republican (of the sort that used to be common in the Northeast) into actually dropping out of the race even though she had the "official" party backing. As a consequence, a Democrat managed to win a Congressional district that Republicans have held continuously since the 19th century.
Yet more moderate Republicans won -- narrowly in bluish NJ, and decisively in purplish VA -- by playing down their socially conservative views and focusing on nuts and bolts sorts of practical issues. You'd think a party looking for the way to win back some real power in next year's mid-terms would seize on this sort of moderation and focus on getting something done as the key, rather than catering to the uncompromisingly far right party-purity faction.
But honestly, alas, I wouldn't count on it.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-04 07:24 pm (UTC)In the short run, we can laugh, and laugh, and laugh.