Election 2009: Don't Stare at the Tea Leaves for Too Long

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Holly Bailey

Katie Connolly

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Another Reason 2010 Isn't Exactly Like 1994

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Earlier this week Holly wrote a really interesting piece about the electoral parallels between now and 1993—and the fact that the GOP is hoping for a dramatic Democratic defeat in next year's midterms, similar to what happened in 1994. Holly points out...

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Katie Connolly

Make no mistake: tonight’s losses in Virginia and New Jersey should worry the Democratic Party. Just one year after their historic presidential victory, it turns out that ballots without the name “Obama” don’t have the same magnetic allure for voters, especially if said voters are young, black, or Hispanic. That’s a problem for Democrats heading into 2010, particularly members of Congress who were elected in traditionally Republican districts. But be careful about reading too much into these results. It wasn't a referendum on the president.

Recent history tells us that both Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests tend to be won by the party that has just been kicked out of the White House. In 2001, Democrats Jim McGreevey and Mark Warner soundly beat their Republican opponents in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively, where the GOP had held both positions. And in 1993, Bill Clinton’s first year in office, Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey and George Allen in Virginia wrested the governorships from Democrats.

This isn’t 2008. Obama is no longer the voice of change, a representation of possibility. He’s the president, the incumbent, the new establishment. He’s the guy with the power in races where, as Fineman notes, voters clearly want to continue punishing the Big Dogs. Even if many of the problems Obama is dealing with were not of his making, he’s the guy holding all the cards now. Recovering from a near-devastating recession was never going to be simple or speedy. And 10 months into a new administration the probability that the economic outlook would suddenly be peachy was pretty low. So there’s still a lot of understandable anger about the economic debacle of 2008, and of course some of that will reflect on the president.

Still, neither of the new Republican governors, Bob McDonnell or Chris Christie, ran anti-Obama campaigns. Both men, McDonnell in particular, kept their campaigns upbeat in the face of negative attacks, and the voters responded. Similarly, neither Democrat, Creigh Deeds nor Jon Corzine, are particularly Obama-esque—politically, biographically, or rhetorically. They can stand beside him in as many campaign ads as they like, but few voters are going to mistake a pro-gun hunter with a Southern accent for the president any time soon. And let's not forget that much of each race was dedicated to local issues—transport policy or state taxes—which is entirely typical of state races. Those aren’t the transcendent themes that resonated so loudly with Obama voters last year.

For me, the biggest question raised by tonight’s results is this: if the Democratic candidates had run as “Obama Democrats” (in the vein of “Reagan Republicans”), what would that campaign look like? Can the appeal of the Obama ’08 campaign—change, hope, etc.—even be localized? Or does its very existence revolve around the enormous possibility of the presidency? How do congressional or state-office candidates take the Obama credo and reasonably apply it to local issues like speed limits and playgrounds? Of course the president himself was a community organizer who probably understands the potency of fiercely parochial issues. And he clearly knows how to parlay that knowledge into a political career. But the distance between urban planning, for example, and the Obama ’08 campaign is vast. He and his advisers need to figure out how to campaign in that space in between—under an Obama (i.e., not conservative) presidency—if he’s to hold on to his impressive legislative majorities in 2010.

Tag(s): Barack Obama, Corzine, Chris Christie, Creigh Deeds, Bob McDonnell, 2009 Elections

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Posted By: deseife (November 6, 2009 at 4:03 PM)

To say that the elections in New Jersey and Virginia are not a reflection of Obama's policies is absolutely absurd. He campaigned for Corzine in New Jersey five times; Corzine ran TV ads with Obama by his side. While it is true that all politics is local, the same issues were prominent in both states -- high taxes, big and expanding government, and the economy. People are feeling that Obama's change is going too far. He said that the unemployment wouldn't go over 8%; now it's 10.2%. His health care reform is going to cost taxpayers trillions more and create more bureaucracy. Those are the policies that people are protesting with their vote. We also saw it in local races here in Connecticut. The Democrats thought that because Obama carried some traditionally Republican towns last year, that they had a good shot at winning. Well, they didn't; plus Republicans took control of some larger towns that have had Democratic mayors for decades. It turns out that the young people who turned out for Obama have gone back to doing what young people do and aren't really interested in local goverment. As a poll worker, I observed that probably at least 95% of voters were over 40 years old. That's what the Democrats need to worry about in next year's Congressional elections.

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Posted By: 2gofer (November 4, 2009 at 5:54 PM)

It wouldn't have been a referendum on Obama if he hadn't made it so by campaigning for the Democrat candidates with the message that they were needed to advance his agenda. The exit polling data indicates that the independents have shifted their position and the Obamanites stayed home. The expectations that Obama generated during the campaign have turned to disappointment now that actions do not match the words. On the positive side for Obama, voters have short memories so superfical positions delivered with incredible eloquence will probably be effective again in 2010.