A lot of the post-election commentary has been entertaining, if not
very enlightening. To any disinterested observer, the Republicans had
a good day on the whole last Tuesday. Not an unalloyed success, bearing
in mind the self-inflicted wound in New York, but looking at New Jersey
and Virginia, a pretty good day. So the question was how this good
result for the Republicans was going to be turned into a bad result, or
a result of no significance either way.
Eric Alterman explains "why Democrats are smiling". Sort of explains.
While the Democratic brand is obviously not what it was when so many of us were brought to tears a year ago by that beautiful scene in Grant Park, Republicans are on the verge of civil war. The sure-to be-a loser side appears to have all the soldiers and the reasonable-sounding side, and the one that can win, appears to have well, not much going on. The Republicans' suicide will be anything but painless if this keeps up--and it will, if only to continue to juice Fox's ratings.
Well, as you can see, the piece is not a model of clarity. I've read that second sentence four or five times and I'm still not sure what it means. (Didn't the reasonable-sounding side that can win, in fact, just do so? Can you win and still have "not much going on"? What else apart from winning do you really need to have going on?) But over the course of the article it does emerge that Alterman sincerely believes the Democrats have cause to celebrate Tuesday's results. Well done!
Gail Collins in the NYT also deserves special mention, I think. She is not alone in believing that the elections were meaningless, but she gets extra credit for regarding their meaninglessness as so self-evident that she does not have to establish the point. She can just celebrate it, by lampooning the view that elections convey any information whatever. Love that title: "Hark! The Voters Speak!" What delicious irony. How we laughed. As though any such thing could happen in an election.
Even Charlie Cook, doyen of poll-gazers and a reliably informative commentator, comes off a little blase in this piece for National Journal. He says Tuesday did not tell us anything we didn't already know. (Maybe he meant anything he
didn't already know.) We already knew that independents were turning in
droves against the Democratic party. We already knew that Jon Corzine
was so unpopular he would lose even to a divided opposition. We already
knew that a staunchly conservative Republican could win a purple state
by a big margin if he "projects a moderate, mainstream, nonthreatening,
tolerant image". Did we really know all those things? If I were a
Republican, I'd still be pleased to have them confirmed, and if I were
a Democrat I definitely wouldn't be smiling.
The most inane analysis goes to the utterly predictable EJ Dionne whose every interpretation of any political event is support for Democrats and degradation for Republicans.
He states Tuesday's elections were a rebuke to the right wing. Really? AFAIK, the Republicans didn't try to tear apart candidate Christie of New Jersey even though he's not of the far right wing ideology. They aren't protesting moderate Mark Kirk of Illinois who is running for Obama's former Senate seat. There just aren't enough purge examples to show a trend and so they cling to the only race that supports their ideology and declares it indicative of future strategies and results.
Unfortunately for the Democratic cheerleaders, the electoral vector that brought NY-23 to this point was so unique and unorthodox that it's hard to imagine how it can be replicated in the future unless all the other Republicans get appointed to other branches of the federal government and their home states adopt the quirky run-off rules of New York. Every swing district will have a Republican primary where the conservative and moderate faithful will have a chance to coalesce around a common candidate, not quibble about a candidate annointed a smoke-filled room appointment of local county party chairman.
But go ahead Democrats and their supporters. If you really think this was a positive stroke of events for your future, you do so at your own risk.
As a Virginia Democrat I'm not smiling. But I did find all the op-eds about What We Learned From VA to be overblown. IMO what happened in Virginia was much more about the individual candidates than about the parties.
Bob McDonnell (R) seemed like a solid politician to me - nothing spectacular, but he knew what he was doing. But Creigh Deeds (D) seemed like an decent enough guy who was totally out of his depth running a statewide campaign.
I live in Northern Virginia and I didn't see a single ad where Creigh Deeds told me who he was and what he wanted to do. I saw Mark Warner telling me to vote for Deeds, and Deeds-funded ads telling me that McDonnell was a Neanderthal; but the only time I saw Deeds talking was in McDonnell's attack ads showing Deeds waffling about taxes. Heck, I never even saw an "I'm Creigh Deeds and this is my lovely family" ad.
What I learned was that in Virginia, "Generic Democrat" will get about 41% of the vote. Because that was Deeds - Generic Democrat. He didn't even rise to the level of lackluster; in my little suburban NoVa world he seemed like a non-entity running a non-campaign.
And I voted for the guy!
I know everyone wants to divine national trends from election results, but we vote for people as well as parties. Hats off to McDonnell, he ran a good campaign and deserved his win. But Deeds was about as weak of a candidate as I can remember*, and I think that mattered more than party affiliation.
*That's a different concern for VA Dems - if Deeds vs. Terry McAuliffe is the best we can do, something's gone wrong.
Perhaps they are also smiling because certain EMPLOYMENT IS UP DRAMATICALLY!
Can I lampoon the idea that CA10 just stone cold does not exist, even though it was a Republican seat in the 90s? In fact it defied the moderate trend by being won by a more liberal politician, though I don't know the flavor of the Republican opposition.
For the governor's races, voters in both states said they approved of the president and were voting on local issues. In NJ those few voting nationally voted Democratic, and those citing local issues voted for the Republican. I don't think "all politics is local" is so old as to be obsolete. Two moderate Republicans won running as get-things-done centrists. No hugs for Beck or Rush, and a notable disinterest in accepting the help of Palin. There's a message there, though the opposition (Corzine's corruption, Deeds' bizarre choice to run on a single fault of his opponent's and not on Kaine and Warner) must be included.
Voters in NY 23 rejected a bunch of people--including the candidate--coming in from outside the district and trying to give them a locally-ignorant candidate who scored high in the Palin-Beck scale of purity. There's a lesson in the three officially recognized races about moderates winning and extremists losing. So why the passionate embrace of "people voted for Christie thinking first, take this Obama, and then, I like Republicans, and also, I no longer like Democrats." Actual voters claim to have been thinking "property taxes."
Humm, maybe I can help. In NJ--a very unpopular incumbent who mostly failed to bring in his earlier election's campaign promises is likely to lose despite a third party candidate. But narrowly. In Va--a good candidate from the 'out' party beats a poor candidate from the 'in' party during bad economic times. Also in Va, the DC suburbs found little to like in Mr Deeds but the 'downstate' voters liked Mr MrDonnell (one of Sen Webbs 'Scotch-Irishmen') pretty good. In NY 23, the Repub civil war sabotaged their efforts in a generally Repub-leaning (Cooke: R +1) district. And in Maine--as someone has said (wish I'd made it up)--the voters worried that young men would get so high on medical marijuana that they'd marry their buddies instead of their girlfriends by mistake. Kind of the ultimate 'Christ was I drunk last night' experience.
Since the governorship has gone to the party out of the White House since the 70's in Virginia, I would say that the VA governor's race has no signs and omens worth pondering. The Corzine-Christie race is somewhat discouraging for Democrats, but most sensible people recognize that Corzine was damaged goods from the outset. So they made a two race "sweep" of the governorships.
On the other hand, the Democrats picked up a seat in NY thanks to GOP infighting and a swing district in California not only stayed blue, but got bluer with a more progressive candidate.
What should make Democrats smile is the indications that those who run as Democrats and progressive Democrats did well. Those who ran as Blue Dogs like Creigh Deeds lost. That makes me smile.
"Did we really know all those things?"
If we were paying attention, yes. If we were sleepwalking, no.
A much better analysis is by Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com:
The item about the NY-23 Congressional district is particularly telling. Because when you say, "Didn't the reasonable-sounding side that can win, in fact, just do so?" the answer is, No. Or at least, not on their own merits. In NJ, anyone not named Corzine would have won, so the "reasonable-sounding"-ness wasn't tested. In VA, the winning candidate did everything he could to run as a Democrat other than change his party affiliation, because running as a conservative has that much bruised brand equity. In NY, we saw what is a likely outcome for the Republican party: Dissolution and defeat.
Clive,
I agree that there is nothing for Dems to be dancing in the street about; but the corollary isn't necessarily that Republicans should be content with Tuesday.
Let me put it to you this way; if guys like you were calling the shots in the republican party then it would be a no brainer - project a nice mainstream image all the way to electoral victory. But the fact is that guys like you are not entirely in charge of the GOP, there is a radical fringe that is ascendent and is willing to lose to prove its point. Who will have more sway in the months leading up to 2010, that is the story of Tuesday. It's not really about the Democrats or their 'philosophy' (as Bobo Brooks tries to make it - he's wrong)The Dems are just tied to the general economy, but can the GOP capitalise on that ... answer still unclear.
As neither a Republican, nor a Democrat, I am smiling about the last election, but I too have a hesitation, like waiting for the other shoe to drop: How can we get those in power to recognize our unhappiness, if Democrats respond to losing two 'signal' elections by ignoring or spinning them into oblivion?
How does one establish a new political party? The readership of the Atlantic will never be a political force that stands on its own in this country, but combined with something, it could be.
I do not believe in the continued goodness of Labor Unions. They are remnants of the nineteenth century, just as socialism, communism and Marxism are similar remnants, and all taken together present a shortsighted simplistic approach to the solving of problems, and indeed create their own problems. With modern 20th and 21st century technology, the distance between a labor union controlled socialistic society and a totalitarian society is the difference between the amount of coercive force needed to enforce a 55 mph speed limit, as opposed to a 65 mph limit, on interstate highways.
I don't want to live in a country with too many laws. I do not want to violate three laws every day on the way to work. I do not want to be a criminal, and yet by 1968, I was well on my way to a life that had a criminal shadow, if not a criminal intent. By this, I am referring to a certain fondness for marijuana. But in our society, obtaining a respectable carrier, one providing an income large enough to have to a tax bill of $300,000/year, does seem to separate you from the attentions of local police.
Over a thirty year carrier, I have paid $4-5 million in taxes. I have very little to show for that, and it is finally starting to rub me the wrong way. I have been effective in creating personal wealth, but I have been exposed to a great many people who wanted to have wealth handed to them. But ironically, I have watched as a few of those people did have wealth handed to them, and further watched as the legal and accounting professions have conspired to take that money away from those "lucky" few.
Organized political society, it's heralds, its heros and its protectors, have betrayed the common man/woman. Everyone finds a game, a gimmick, a niche or a refuge; and then they are content. Helping the poor, as long as it doesn't hurt me, is the mantra. But that can only be spun so far.
America has a lot of laws on the books. Many of those laws are either not universally enforced, or are institutionally ignored. This is a basic problem. If Congress passes a law applying to everyone, than that law should also apply to them. Examples of congressional exception abound: sexual harassment, labor laws, medical insurance, retirement programs, etc. Public Employee's unions are treated differently from other unions, and unions in general are given special perks. This is not freedom and equality, this is tyranny. This is also called corruption.
But the system is so convoluted, the politicians have insulated themselves so well from outside intrusion, and the entire governance process is so obscure and bureaucratized, that losing a couple of elections is not a threat.
That is why the democrats are still smiling.
Glad to see someone else spotted the unintentional humor. On Wednesday morning I tuned in to airamerica.com to get some ludicrous spin, and they did not disappoint! The headliner article was a sulking piece about how shameful and unjust was the win in Maine, and how the VA/NJ wins were insignificant. It ended with an unexplained line about how "the only meaningful race was in NY".
I commented there, begging them and their ilk to keep believing everything the article said. (Helloooooooo, November 2010!) They deleted my post; an act which I thought was also pretty funny.
I read Alterman and Collins' essays. Delusion run amuck, I think. I don't understand how anyone would be willing to embarrass themselves that way unless they really, really believed it.
If you were a Democrat, Clive, you most likely would be smiling. That's because, as you pointed out, the second sentence in Alterman's piece is borderline-incoherent, as if he's unable to think with clarity.
People who can think clearly adjust their mental map of the world when they see it doesn't match the landscape of political reality. People who don't just keep stumbling forward, confident that their map is accurate, smiling all the way. Party hacks on either side do this.
But less Republican gloating would be better, in my mind, because the landscape is bound to change some before 2010. I understand it though, since its been a long time since events made Republicans smile.
I also had trouble parsing that second sentence, but I think I figured it out.
The reference is to the supposed Republican civil war:
"The sure-to be-a loser side appears to have all the soldiers and the reasonable-sounding side, and the one that can win, appears to have well, not much going on."
In this sentence, the "sure-to be-loser side" refers to conservative Republicans and the writer is saying that conservatives have "all the soldiers" and can not win an election.
The "reasonable sounding side" would than be the moderates who the author believes could win an election but do not have "much going on" as far as gaining control of party direction.
Not saying I agree with any of that... just think I got it figured out.
The other odd point here is the reference to a Republican "civil war". It's not at all uncommon to have the ideologically pure and the moderates fight over a candidate in a swing district, and still have success in the general election. Usually this happens during the primary process, an avenue that was bypassed in NY-23 due to the uniqueness of the situation.
Perhaps someone can explain if primary challenges to Senators Liberman and Spector by the left wing of the Democratic party are examples of civil war.