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Uh oh By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on Nov. 5, 2009, in the Connersville News-Examiner. Tuesday’s off-off-year elections were a mere shadow of Election Day one year ago.
There were, however, interesting outcomes from the balloting — some expected, some not. In Virginia, Republican Robert McDonnell easily defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in a state that swung for President Barack Obama last year. McDonnell overcame scurrilous attacks from his opponent as well as campaigning from an Obama attempting to keep his backyard from falling into enemy hands. The Commonwealth’s lieutenant governor seat and attorney general also went to the GOP candidates, marking a change in the political makeup of a state where the current governor, lieutenant governor and a majority of the Congressional delegation currently are Democrats. Many pollsters saw this coming, and the big question that was to be settled on Election Day was how big the landslide would be for McDonnell. The real nail-biter race on Tuesday was in New Jersey, where incumbent John Corzine struggled to hold his gubernatorial seat against challenger Chris Christie. In somewhat of a surprise, Christie was able to unseat Corzine in the heavily blue Garden State. The campaign was contentious, with Christie and Corzine going so far as to criticize each other’s weight and lack of hair. Pundits panned this kind of campaigning widely, but having spent considerable time in New Jersey, I know that Jerseyites have their own way of doing things. The pundits and the White House also downplayed Tuesday’s elections, dismissing the notion these contests represented a referendum on Obama and his agenda. With such a limited scope of polling, the Obama administration could tell themselves and the nation these elections were local in nature, but with the 2010 midterms now looming less than a year away, White House officials may privately have one thought on their minds — uh oh. 2010 is clearly on the administration’s mind, with senior White House adviser David Axelrod saying their goal for next year is to seek out independent voters. “The goal looking forward to 2010 — when we will in fact have a broad national election for Congress — is to motivate those independent voters who voted for us last time, but stayed home this time,” Axelrod told Fox News on Wednesday. Axelrod also crowed about the Democrat win in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, where Democrat Bill Owens edged out Conservative Doug Hoffman in a special election for the seat vacated by Republican John M. McHugh. “A Democrat hasn’t held that seat for 140 years,” Axelrod said of the New York election. “I think that sends a strong message.” What he failed to mention was the only reason the election was necessary was due to the Obama administration’s trickery. Obama tapped McHugh to be Secretary of the Army in a move thought to be an attempt to turn the district’s seat Democrat. Thanks to the peculiarities of New York election law, the New York GOP put Republican-in-name-only Dierdre Scozzafava on the ticket. Scozzafava would likely have lost a primary race to Doug Hoffman had she faced him, as seen by her low polling during the campaign. She pulled out of the race last weekend — throwing her support behind Owens — but remained on the ballot and drew just enough votes away from Hoffman to give Owens the win. Hoffman was also dogged by the stigma of being a third party candidate, although the New York Conservative Party does not represent a typical third party in the same way as the Reform Party, the Green Party or the Constitution Party since the Conservative Party usually backs the Republican candidate. Axelrod was correct to say the result sends a strong message, but that message is that the White House will pull out all the stops in order to keep their hands on power. It’s the message the voters sent on Tuesday the administration should be most concerned about in the coming months. Obama was swept into office riding on a platform buoyed by novelty and aided by a Republican Party whose conservative base was disgusted with the selection of John McCain. The youth vote was significant last year, but the youth of the nation are fickle. Most of them were probably unaware of Tuesday’s election and will probably be equally ignorant of next year’s vote. The vaunted yet unprincipled independent voters also turned out heavily for Obama but broke for the Republicans on Tuesday. Obama used a wave of optimism and far-reaching expectations to win office, but the realities of high unemployment and stalling health reform plans coupled with the facts that he has not closed the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility or pulled out of Iraq is certain to dampen the coattails that gave the Democrats majorities in Congress. A Rasmussen poll released Tuesday showed the Generic Congressional Ballot still favoring Republicans in next year’s election. If voter fatigue among young voters and independents who supported Obama plays out as expected, the slim GOP advantage could be enough to bring an end to the Democrat’s lock on Congress. If Obama wants to attract the independent voters as Axelrod suggests, he will need to moderate his agenda, beginning with the increasingly unpopular health care takeover and the economically dangerous cap-and-trade global warming reduction plan — something he is not likely to do. A majority of voters may have put Obama and the Democrats at the pinnacle of power, but if the administration insists on ramming through legislation a majority of the American people do not want, then that same majority may chose otherwise next November. • Guilmette is managing editor of the News-Examiner. He may be contacted at mguilmette@newsexaminer.com. |
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Copyright © 2009, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
Consisting primarily of local positions and some statewide ballot issues in a handful of states, the 2009 election season didn’t receive the wide-ranging interest or media coverage like that seen in presidential election years or even in mid-term congressional elections.
