Election Reflection

Looking over my post from Tuesday morning I got a lot wrong, but a few days later I feel the political mood in America is not drastically different. There are some interesting things developing though.

Corzine losing was a bit of a surprise but it was going to be a tight race anyway. The difference was probably largely the new/young/urban set who never voted before but came out for Obama. They mostly stayed home this time.

NY-23 really surprised me. I know Dede Scozz endo'd Bill Owens but she was not an incumbent and in a large district like that I didn't think she had a huge personal appeal that would sway voters against the conservative candidate. Maybe that wasn't the deciding factor, but it may have been. That Owens is the first Democrat to hold the seat in over a hundred years is as remarkable or more than the fact Christie ended 8 years of Democrats in Trenton.

Maybe the biggest surprise, for me anyway, was how close BIll Thompson came in the NYC Mayor's race. I guess on Tuesday night I got my answer to why Bloomberg spent so much money. It still does not cease to amaze me. I think he has done a good job these past 8 years, is a likeable or at least neutral personality, and Bill Thompson is more or less a generic run of the mill candidate. And Bloomberg had to spend a mindblowing amount of money to squeak out a victory. Very strange.

Tuesday gave us two clues to the state of American political life as we head into a midterm year.

1, the center of gravity has not shot to the right as a backlash to the Obama administration as some have suggested. A Republican won the southern state of Virginia, a moderate Republican won in NJ, Republicans lost control of a congressional district they had held for over a century, the supposed fast closing candidate in northern California turned out to be a flop, and perhaps most significant of all conservative ballot measures in Maine and Washington both failed.

2, the struggle for the soul of the Republican party is in full swing. There is no denying the momentum and energy is with the right. From mouthpiece conservatives like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to the more vocal members of Congress to the de facto presidential candidates like Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, the more abrasive and ideological figures are exciting Republicans. BUT... it appears we are in an era where moderates will do better at the polls. Chris Christie used a campaign strategy of aligning himself with Obama that would have most Republicans foaming at the mouth had he not knocked off Jon Corzine. He co-opted some of the broad themes of the Obama campaign but beyond that went out of his way to point out where he agreed with the president. The power struggle in upstate NY is well chronicled and what it comes down to is that the right wing (mostly from outside the district and state) pushed a reasonably mainstream Republican out of the race in favor of an ideologically pure alternative... and in so doing lost what should have been a solid and safe seat in Congress. One that the coattails of Obama, Clinton, Johnson, Kennedy, and FDR could not swing Democrat was pushed over by the fervor of the Palins of the world.

In concrete terms I am not sure what this means for 2010 but here is my guess:

1, Democrats will lose 10-15 seats in the House but retain their majority. In the Senate Democrats will do better, in large part due to the specific seats in play this time. Republicans will probably pick up some governorships.

2, 2010 will be the best indicator of the tone of the 2012 Republican primary. As I mentioned above the conservative zeitgeist says one thing, but election realities say another. There are some who are staking out ground as far to the right as possible already but I think a lot of the people who will run in 2012 (Romney, Huckabee, etc) are going to wait and see what happens next November before they calibrate their message.