Election 2009: Independents go on a donkey-shoot
All the poll-tracking is over. All the speculation about the meaning of the 2008 election is over. All the wondering about the vitality of the Obama magic is over. Elections have a nice way of clearing the air of prognostications and predictions. We have results. We have actual votes, not polls of possible voters. And the lesson this year is very simple.
Independent voters utterly loathe the Democrats.
There really is no other way to spin it. Most Democrats will try to blame this debacle, and it was a debacle of historic proportions, on local issues or bad candidates. But as they say, denial is not a plan. You can pretend that you don’t have a problem, but that does not make it so.
Looking at these numbers should scare the bejesus out of Democrats, especially those who represent the 49 congressional districts that McCain won.
From American Spectator.
Exit polls showed Christie, a former U.S. attorney, trouncing Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine by 58 percent to 31 percent. In Virginia, independents opted for McDonnell over Democrat Creigh Deeds by an astonishing 65 percent to 34 percent. Both states have been trending Democratic for a decade, as swing voters turned a deaf ear to Republican appeals.
Those are margins of 27 and 31, respectively. The Republicans almost doubled the number of independents who voted for Democrats.
And while the Hoffman loss in NY-23 is a tough one for Conservatives, one has to keep some perspective. About 654,360 people live in the district. By contrast, in just Fairfax County, Virginia alone there are over 1,000,000 people. The sheer number of voters that repudiated the Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey cannot be balanced by one congressional race in upstate New York.
The Democrats did not lose a 2-1 squeaker last night. They lost two huge races, saw an overall evaporation of 25 basis points of support — and lost by nearly 500 thousand votes cumulatively in the three high profile elections.
Or put another way, Republicans won two races decided by millions of voters — and Democrats won a small race dominated by party operatives. . . .
What we did not know was just how overwhelming the anti-Democrat tide would be among voters. In the three talked about races, it was a blow out of something like 55-42% overall in precincts that voted for Obama 56-44 just a year ago. The raw totals will end up a tad under 2.4 million GOP votes to 1.9 million for the Democrats in round numbers.
So don’t buy into any 2-1 split decision analysis. It was a stunning reversal of a full quarter of the electorate in one year’s time.
Also on the NY-23 race, one has to bear in mind that the Republican Party spent $900,000.00 trying to defeat Doug Hoffman before Dede Scozzafava dropped out. For a guy that was in single digits 3 weeks ago to battle both the DNC and the RNC and come within a few points of winning is pretty remarkable. This was also a special election to finish out the term of a Republican who carried the district by a margin of 30 points in 2008 and which hasn’t voted for a Democrat since the Civil War. This is a temporary win at best for the Dems.
All year, we have seen parallels with 1993. Democrats pooh-pooh it, but we have seen a young, rock-star, Democratic president overreach on health care and taxes before. And in 1994, the voters punished the Democrats, and Republicans took back the Congress for the first time in 40 years. So the morning after election day in 1993, just like this morning, we had a new governor in New Jersey named Christie Whitman who won by 1 point and a new Virginia governor named George Allen, who won by 17 points. Yesterday Chris Christie did even better than Whitman, winning by 4. McDonnell won by 18, which was the largest margin of victory for a Virginia Republican in history. People can say Creigh Deeds was a bad candidate, but was he really the worst candidate in history? So to the extent that 1993 was a harbinger of 1994, last night’s elections make 2010 look worse for Democrats than 1994.
So when the Democrats today start bleating about how the extremist wing of the Republican party cost the GOP the election in upstate New York, be sure to remind them that it was the extremist wing of the Democrat Party in Washington that cost them Virginia and New Jersey.
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The democrats had their heads handed to them last night and they deserved the losses. In New Jersey corruption is corruption, though not unsurprising for the state and a business leader did little to come up with ways to boost the economy. In Virgina the Obama progressives stayed home and I would like to think to send a message about their disappointment but that is unlikely. It looks like the best man won. All in all it was a good night for moderate republicans.
I do hope Obama gets the message and works to get real reforms on the financial sector, deal with the geniuses who created this mess rather than coddling them. If he only helps the banks and wall street and not the guy suffering on the street the man deserves to lose.
I would however quibble with your picture of the last rock star in the White House…he stayed there for eight years under far more fire than Obama.
The only reason Clinton got a second term is because the electorate cured his excesses in 1994. Americans usually like divided government. Ironically, if the GOP takes over next year, which I think they will in at least the House, it probably ensures Obama’s reelection.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’ll agree that the Democratic losses in Virginia and New Jersey are more significant, though I might disagree on how significant they are.
However, the upset in NY isn’t to be taken lightly. Here’s how I see it; moderate Republicans won in both NJ and VA. But moderate Republicans aren’t really running the party right now. Had a more conservative candidate come along in either state, I have no doubt that the right-wing (if not the GOP itself) would have fallen all over itself to declare this person the “true” standard-bearer for Conservatives. And herein lies the catch, I think. Because of these wins (and the loss, too, actually), I suspect that the, ahem, less moderate wing of the Republican party may become more emboldened and continue the purge of moderate Republicans within the party.
The absolute best thing that can happen to the Democrats is that the GOP decides they haven’t been aggressive ENOUGH and runs an entire army of Hoffmans throughout the upcoming elections (which, frankly, sounds pretty likely).
In response to another comment. See in context »Gotta take issue with your premise there sparky. The three Republicans who won in Virginia were most assuredly not moderates. The Washington Post must have written 30 hit pieces on McDonnell about how much of a right-winger he is.
The Lt. Gov.-elect was described (on his own site) in the context of the primary contest for the job, as follows.
Then this, also from Bolling’s site, says of A.G.-elect, Ken Cuccinelli,
.
The right-wingers won in Virginia by historical margins. Why wouldn’t other conservatives use Virginia as a perfect example of how to shred the Democrats?
In response to another comment. See in context »Okay, Billy, you run with that premise. Because the rest of the country is EXACTLY LIKE VIRGINIA, as evidenced by the overwhelming conservative win in a wildly liberal New York State district. Or, you know, the opposite of what I just said.
By this logic, Democrats should point to Barney Frank’s continuing popularity as an example how to run races in Montana.
Point is, the GOP isn’t going to be able to run beyond-the-pale socially conservative candidates coast to coast and win. It just simply won’t happen. While Virginia is a good example for Democrats of what not to do, I wouldn’t get all giddy and sappy about the OMG RE-RISING OF THE REPUBLICANS TEA BAGGERS YEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!! just yet.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bwaahhhaaaaa
I love this guy. He completely and I mean completely spins the loss in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
Not one mention of the failed coup by the GOP. This seat was a huge issue before the election with no less than Palin, Limbaugh and Beck throwing their weight behind their Wingnut candidate and FAILING.
I absolutely love it.
I am telling you flat out. I am an Independent voter and always vote with the candidate not the party.
You and your ilk are the reason Conservatives are so frowned upon. You are the reason I and millions more like me will be hard pressed to vote with the current Republican party in 2012.
You clowns are ruining the GOP.
As I’ve said a million times. There’s a reason Taibbi gets so much more attention on this site from Independents. It’s because of his willingness to bash BOTH parties.
Until you clowns can start admitting the MASSIVE problems within the current iteration of the GOP you will be nothing more than a joke. Someone to come here and laugh at in between bouts of reading Taibbi and watching GOP Senators vote against bills that would stop Haliburton from allowing it’s employees to be raped.
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Bill,
In four years’ time the Dems have won the White House, reversed the Senate 15 seats, from a 55-45 Republican majority to a cloture-proof 60-40 Dem majority and reversed 52 seats in the House. And now you want to tell us that these two elections (but not the third one) are massively significant in the face of this 2004-2008 Republican cataclysm? Perhaps your calling is sportswriting or PR, rather than political writing. That’s where your sort of zealousness is acceptable.