Andrew argues that the races today are not about Obama. Who said they were? They're about Democrats and Republicans. They're about whose base is more energized.
If Hoffman wins in NY-23, I assume that makes the squishier Republicans swallow hard and wonder if they might not be vulnerable to a challenge from their party's right wing--not to mention a bunch of Blue Dogs who will be looking at the Republicans and independents in their own districts. If two states with Democratic governors lose them, that signals that the Republicans can move motivated bodies to the polls . . . and while voters may be saying they like Obama as much as ever, they're also saying that they think their taxes are too high and government spending is out of control, issues that polled way higher than "Obama issues" like health care.
All of this makes it tempting to tack right. Because here's the thing: 2010 won't be about Obama either. Oh, his performance over the next year will matter--but he's not going to get that surge of voters out to the polls for house and senate races. The Blue Dogs who are up for election in 2010 aren't worried about Obama, or his voters. They're worried about their own political fates.
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The Focus of the Race
Throw the Rascals out ?
The US is headed for hard times;
Peggy Noonan says so ,it must be true.
What incumbent congresscritter would
want to stay in office; Why, you'd
have to be crazy...powermad, prob'ly
Well, then the question seems to me, what do the dems do to turn out their base?
Does their base turn out if they tack right and abandon hcr? Or, does their base turn out if they tack left and put more progressive policies into hcr?
You nailed it. And that's something Versailles and most "Democratic consultants" never understand.
"Andrew argues that the races today are not about Obama."
Andrew doesn't get to define the borders of the debate. Voters, on the other hand, rejected Obama and fired candidates that Obama was furiously stumping for just days ago.
Obama has the reverse midas touch ... if he shows up, the candidate's election changes seem to turn to crapola.
This is why his health reform package is imploding in both the House and Senate today with both Pelosi and Reid announcing there will be no health care bill this year.
Obama is destroying careers tonight.
Andrew doesn't get to define the borders of the debate.
It's not "defining the borders of the debate", it's "damage control".
How is he destroying careers when his approval ratings are still pretty high? Corzine has no one to blame but himself. Same with Deeds in VA. Deeds ran as Republican-lite. Is it any wonder the Democratic base didn't turn out for him?
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDQ2MDg1YTNhM2NkNTljOWFjMDAzOTg5YmQ3NTkxZjk=
Not sure if the link will work, but Obama featured prominently in the campaigns of Corzine and Deeds.
Derek
What does this prove, other than the fact that both Corzine and Deeds were struggling and Obama was willing to help?
That he didn't?
Derek
Not helping is a far cry from "destroying careers," which is what we were discussing.
Course, I don't buy your premise. How would Deeds have fared if he had embraced Obama, instead of running away from him? How would he have fared if Obama hadn't shown up at all? Same for Corzine (by the way, how was Corzine polling before Obama threw his weight behind him?). No one has any idea. Which is why this whole "referendum on Obama" thing is so pointless.
Link to the National Review. Like that's a trusted source. Haha!!
"Prominently" is an understatement as far as the Corzine campaign was concerned. The pro-Corzine billboards here had a big picture of Obama with a slightly smaller Corzine by his side.
The NJ race may yet turn out to have been a referendum on Obama, if Corzine wins.
Not about Obama? Andrew first cites Virginia exit polls which say "It's the economy, Stupid." So Clinton won an election on just such an argument and made the case that it was GHWB's economy! BTW, the economy really sucks now but not so much in 1992.
Then our learned liberal blogger cites NJ exit polling showing that the election was not about Obama because 20% of the voters came to vote against Obama and 19% came to vote for him. My math and reason says that if 39% of those voters were there because of Barry, then the election is likely more about him than it is about the actual candidates.
perhaps. well, your math is certainly spot on.
say this is about your best friend. would you concede that, based on these numbers, one cannot draw any conclusions about what new jerseyites(?) think about his presidency? most people, both sides, who claim it "means something" do so with the intent to make point XX about his presidency. this seems to make that a tough sell.
also, without any comparative data, i am not sure 39% is so meaningful a number. megan's point is well taken, but without that data, it doesn't seem so crazy to think that 61% of people saying it wasn't about obama means that it, by and large, wasn't really about obama. not that he should be pleased, but "Obama is destroying careers tonight" seems a little premature.
then again, that is from the guy who thinks megan should watch what's in her coffee because she works for the same publication as andrew sullivan. so perhaps i fallen for the bait... incidentally, how late does that library stay open?
In Canada, since we have a dysfunctional parliament where individual members of the government party have no power, it is almost sure that provinces will elect the opposite party. Voters seem to understand that a balance of power is good, and a good 2X4 across the face once and a while is healthy for a politician.
I would think that the results tonight are a bit of that. Obama can probably ignore them, but the House and Senate seats next year are watching very carefully.
Anyone think that Limbaugh's comment lost it for Hoffman?
Derek
Methinks Andrew has his undies in a bunch right about now. Of course, if the results had gone the Dems way, what do you think he'd be writing?
I'm already looking forward to 2012:
"America: Too Racist To Re-Elect Obama?"
Oh please - the press made every by-election a referendum on Iraq during the W-presidency. This is at least IN PART about Obama. He campaigned in NJ and VA. And his candidate in VA lost. We'll see about NJ.
Biden appeared in NY23. Not that that was a good idea. But still - the Administration was out and working for the election of Dems, and does not seem to have been remarkably successful. So it's about them, too.
It wasn't his candidate in VA. Deeds ran as a Republican-lite. It serves him right that the base didn't turn out for him. I can't wait to hear you clowns whine when the Democrats pick up seats in the Senate next year.
If the Democrats pick up seats in the senate in the midterm elections I'll be impressed. It's not looking good tonight.
D.C. Democrats gave exactly what reason for the base to turn out tonight? 2010 should be different. We'll see. The only Dem in possible trouble in 2010 is Dodd, and I doubt he'll lose in the end. I see the Democrats picking up NH and Ohio.
and while voters may be saying they like Obama as much as ever, they're also saying that they think their taxes are too high and government spending is out of control, issues that polled way higher than "Obama issues" like health care.
Proof? Just because some exit polls said so? And if exit polls are always right, John Kerry would have won in 2004.
This was about kicking incumbent Democrats out of office. Deeds was a proxy for an incumbent Democrat in VA, and Corzine was the real thing. This is a prelude to next fall.
All you need to know is the size of the victory in VA, and that Christie won in a three-way race in a reliably blue state. These are significant outcomes. If unemployment is still above 9% next November, it will be a long night for Democrats.
And Deeds gave the base what reason to turn out? None, that's what. Besides, VA has a history of voting for the opposing party of the President in the off year.
If the African-American base can't turn out for any Democrat other then Obama, the Dems are in HUGE trouble.
"Andrew argues that the races today are not about Obama. Who said they were?"
Have you watched any cable news for, like, the last week?
Me neither. But it's my understanding that the "elections as a referendum of Obama" meme has been prevalent. Pretty sure that's who Andrew was referring to.
Anyway, I think the biggest take away from tonight is that cable news makes people stupider.
Over at the Reuters story one of the images in the slide show is a professionally-printed OBAMA / CORZINE sign. You put Obama at the top of the sign, he's part of the issue.
They're about whose base is more energized.
Bzzt. But thanks for playing, McArdle. Maybe you want to stick to economics?
Polls consistently show that self-labeled Democrats and Republicans remain solidly behind and contemptuous of The Omessiah, respectively. Their votes are totally predictable.
Who's up for grabs are approximately the one-third of voters who claim independent status. They went 50/50 for Obama in 2008, which coupled with the smaller size of the Republican base, gave him his win. This time in both Jersey and Virginia they went something like 2-1 for the Republican, generally citing economic factors with a sprinkling of pissed-offness at Team Obama's Chicago-style my way or the highway grandiosity thrown in for good measure.
Fortunately you're still right about the only survivable options for Democrats in right-center or center-right districts, which is to visibly stand up to the fossil leftist Congressional leadership, take a step back from the President, and hammer home their solid economic credentials and local awareness.
Will Obama pull a Clinton and do the same? I predict not. He's not nearly as talented a politician as Clinton, and his team is more idealistic (or rather quixotic in this context) where it isn't downright machine criminal. Signs point to an alarming (if you're a Democrat) growing power vacuum at the top of the Democratic Party, possibly, depending on how bad things get, a childish fratricidal Internetz-style civil war among the youthfully narcissistic Gen Y camp followers, or both.
Time for a sensible "third way" Democrat with strong and charismatic adult people skills to step up! But we've already done Bill, or been done by him, depending on how violated you feel, and Hillary is perhaps sick of what she sees as a perennial rain of ingratitude on her long-suffering self. Who's left?
One thing I'm surprised I haven't seen yet:
President Bill Clinton's campaign abilities never worked for anyone but himself. He had extremely short coattails, and his presence apparently didn't seem to help most of the people he campaigned for.
Why isn't anyone drawing a connection from that to President Barack Obama?
It seems as if there is a depth of information to be mined that Triangulation (campaign as an extreme liberal in the primary, campaign as a moderate in the general election, govern as a moderate liberal and/or trying to significantly expand the size of big govt) is actually a net negative for any election below that of President.
That's not a proven hypothesis by any means, but it would be worth establishing through diligent research in order to test its predictive power in the 2010 elections.
Corzine outspent Christie 2 to 1. A couple of weeks ago, in NPR's reporting on the NJ race, one of the commentators said that if Obama visited the state once more he'd be eligible to vote in Jersey. He won the state by 16 points last November. No Republican has won statewide office in Jersey in more than a decade. And he still couldn't deliver it for Corzine.
Political power, political capital is directly proportionate to your ability to help your allies and hurt your opponents. Now if you're a unionized worker you're still cool, but if you were a Democratic politician the former proved extremely limited in the first big elections of Obama's presidency, and the latter seemed nonexistent. If you don't think Obama burned off a ton of political capital last night, you're either not paying attention or in denial. No, party loyalists on either side didn't move (although I'll bet the numbers will show a far lesser degree of Republican defection than in the Presidential election), but that's not really the battleground. The fight is for independents and swing voters, and they broke right.
Now everything gets harder for the Whitehouse, because while yesterday "Help [insert your name here] return to Washington/[insert state capital here] and get Obama's agenda passed" had a legitimate shot at getting you reelected (and made you cool and popular); today, not so much. Which means if you're a Blue Dog Dem, the calculus on your votes just got real exciting.