The referendum on Obama
Republicans took a joyful victory lap last week for next year's 2010 midterm elections. Now all they have to do is run the race.
THE BULLPEN
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Robert Shrum
The Republicans won the midterm elections last week. In an unhappy accident of timing, however, the elections won’t be held for another year. Despite the GOP’s premature victory laps and the press’s predictable reaction, the outcome had almost nothing to do with next November’s contests for the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and statewide offices in 36 states.
From just two tea leaves, Virginia and New Jersey, conservative columnists who should know better brewed instant fantasies worthy of the teabaggers. Charles Krauthammer pompously proclaimed a defeat for "Obamaism," dooming the President’s once and future victories. Obama’s 2008 election, he wrote, was a "historical anomaly ... one shot, one time" and -- in case you still didn’t get the point -- "never to be repeated." Never?
Never mind that in Virginia the Republican challenger never once challenged Obama. In Jersey, incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine was a casualty not of the President who stumped for him as he closed a yawning gap in the polls, but of the Bush economy, which left a yawning gap in state revenues and precluded deeper cuts in property taxes. Corzine’s Republican rival Chris Christie featured Obama on his website -- not to scorn him, but to embrace his message of change. Nine successive times in Virginia and six successive times in New Jersey, the party that won the White House has lost the governorships there the following year.
Krauthammer’s misreading of the 2009 results may have been purple and Apocalyptic, but it was echoed, in somewhat muted terms, across the right-leaning landscape. It was as if the Right had found its promised land in Old Dominion and the Turnpike State. Former White House Speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote that the Republican victors faced down opponents who practiced the politics of "viciousness." (He should know; he worked for Bush.) "All politics is national," he went on, citing the slumping economy caused, of course, not by Bush’s near-depression but by Obama’s deficit spending.
(More here.)
THE BULLPEN
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Robert Shrum
The Republicans won the midterm elections last week. In an unhappy accident of timing, however, the elections won’t be held for another year. Despite the GOP’s premature victory laps and the press’s predictable reaction, the outcome had almost nothing to do with next November’s contests for the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and statewide offices in 36 states.
From just two tea leaves, Virginia and New Jersey, conservative columnists who should know better brewed instant fantasies worthy of the teabaggers. Charles Krauthammer pompously proclaimed a defeat for "Obamaism," dooming the President’s once and future victories. Obama’s 2008 election, he wrote, was a "historical anomaly ... one shot, one time" and -- in case you still didn’t get the point -- "never to be repeated." Never?
Never mind that in Virginia the Republican challenger never once challenged Obama. In Jersey, incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine was a casualty not of the President who stumped for him as he closed a yawning gap in the polls, but of the Bush economy, which left a yawning gap in state revenues and precluded deeper cuts in property taxes. Corzine’s Republican rival Chris Christie featured Obama on his website -- not to scorn him, but to embrace his message of change. Nine successive times in Virginia and six successive times in New Jersey, the party that won the White House has lost the governorships there the following year.
Krauthammer’s misreading of the 2009 results may have been purple and Apocalyptic, but it was echoed, in somewhat muted terms, across the right-leaning landscape. It was as if the Right had found its promised land in Old Dominion and the Turnpike State. Former White House Speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote that the Republican victors faced down opponents who practiced the politics of "viciousness." (He should know; he worked for Bush.) "All politics is national," he went on, citing the slumping economy caused, of course, not by Bush’s near-depression but by Obama’s deficit spending.
(More here.)
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2 Comments:
Why isn't anybody recognizing the low turnout ?
In Virginia, 2,837,567 registered voters DID NOT go to the polls ... only 1,878,017 people voted ... that's pathetic.
The GOP lost the NY-23 despite having more registered voters than the Democrats.
Call it 'election fatigue'. People don't turn out for off-year elections. I can attest to this as a head election judge in St Paul. We had nearly 75% turn out last November in my precinct. Barely 20% turned out for the mayor election this year. People are growing ever more cynical of government especially now. A president who takes no responsibility for the state of affairs and a slogan of 'hope and change' has rung pretty much empty since what his party is pushing is not the 'hope and change' people voted for in November. If things are the way they are today come next November, the fatigue will turn to anger and the Democrats will be shown the collective door. And we'll see that 75% in my precinct again next year.
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