Here’s my quick take on the elections yesterday. Virginia is a red state again. The race for governor was a blow out. In New Jersey the Republican defeated the highly unpopular incumbent and in New York the Democrat won the special election for the House. What does it all mean?
Without Obama on the ticket it’s tough to get the Democrat base out to vote. Democrats will not be successful in battleground states if their party is perceived as the tax and spend party. The GOP is a joke. They picked Dede Scozzafava to run in the special election in New York and when she dropped out she endorsed the Democrat. If the GOP had picked Hoffman there’s a better chance he would have won. It says a lot about what the choices facing voters in the Northeast. They can either pick a Democrat or a Republican who is actually a Democrat.
New Jersey is purely a local election. Republican Chris Christie defeated incumbent John Corzine because New Jersey is a corrupt mess. I’ll stick with what I said on Monday. There’s not much to learn from an election like this, but the nation is looking more like 2004 than 2008,
“Without Obama on the ticket it’s tough to get the Democrat base out to vote.”
So true. On today’s MSNBC’s Morning Joe the discussion was how only half (?!?) of Obama’s 2008 caucus even bothered to show up and vote. IMO I wouldn’t call that a referendum against Obama, or even the democratic congress, but rather the pure laziness among young voters and even African American voters. There, I said it. And what happened in Maine makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. If churches want to influence elections, then they should be deprived of their tax exemption status.
But hey, at least NY23 pulled it out, and Asheville reclaimed its liberal roots, so it wasn’t a total loss.
As I mentioned before the “youth vote” is a myth. That wasn’t the problem for Democrats on Tuesday. It’s going to be difficult for Democrats in 2010 if there’s not huge change in the next year. They’re the party in power now and most Americans believe we’re on the wrong track.