Election Results
Republicans won both gubernatorials (New Jersey and Virginia) yesterday. Typically, Republican leaders are saying stuff like “we’re baaack” and “Obama is toast.” Not surprisingly, the White House is saying the results are not about the president. And Nancy Pelosi is saying the races that “mattered” were the Congressional seats that Democrats won.
Personally, I think the numbers tell the tale. All together, GOP candidates got about 2.4 million votes to about 1.9 million votes for Democrats. That looks to me like a whole lot of people who voted Democrat a year ago went to the polls yesterday and pulled the “I’m sorry!” levers.
Gibbsy can spin this however he likes. The fact is that Obama campaigned for both Corzine and Deeds and the DNC (therefore the White House) poured more than $9 million into the Virginia and New Jersey races. The Republican candidates won in both states by a LOT. In Virginia, McDonnell beat Deeds by 320,000 votes, a 26-point swing away from Democrats over last November. The last time McDonnell ran against Deeds — for Attorney General in 2005 — McDonnell won by only 323 votes statewide.
In New Jersey, the incumbent Corzine had a lot to boast about. New Jersey is a traditional Democrat stronghold that gave Obama 59% of the vote last fall, plus Corzine had twice as much money, a lot more Democrats to mobilize, multiple Obama appearances, and a third-party candidate hand-picked to mess up Christie. Yet he only pulled in 44% of the vote. The White House is making noises about “local issues” — Corzine is a wealthy, corrupt, tax-raiser — but that stuff never stopped Democrats from winning in New Jersey before.
Meanwhile, Pelosi is right. Democrats won NY-23, a congressional seat that has been held for decades by the GOP. But don’t discount these facts. The inexperienced, third-party Hoffman got national backing from prominent Republicans Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty. His poll numbers rose while Scozzafava’s fell into the basement. Last week, she quit the race but instead of backing the right winger, Hoffman, she endorsed the Democrat Owens who also had a very well-funded Obama-machine working for him. Yet Hoffman BARELY lost the election!
I surfed around and saw lots of punditry about future elections, especially Obama in 2012. Mostly people were saying it would all depend on how the economy was doing. I see four speed bumps in the way of Obama’s triumphant return for four more years.
SPEED BUMP ONE: Wallets do drive most elections so barring other factors, if the recession is easing up or over, Obama will most likely get re-elected in 2012. But why in hell would we expect Democrats to revive the economy in such a short time? Obama is the first Democrat to be in charge during a recession since FDR, whose policies turned a recession into The Great Depression. Since then, no Democrat has been in the White House for a recession and the Democrats who were in Congress routinely opposed every move Republican presidents made that actually helped end each recession.
In 1961, Democrat Jack Kennedy ran on getting the country moving again … except the recession had ended in 1958.
In 1969, while Republican Richard Nixon struggled with inflation and recession, Democrats opposed his agenda and the recession didn’t end until 1975.
In 1977, Democrat Jimmy Carter ran as a Washington outsider, basically telling the country “I’m not a crook like Nixon.” Then he instituted a bunch of liberal social policies that set off ten-percent inflation and ten-percent unemployment.
In 1981, while Republican Ronald Reagan struggled with the Carter mess, Democrats opposed his agenda. Reagan got his tax cuts and the recession ended while he was in office … which helped get another Republican into office. (Usually, the White House flip flops between the two parties.)
In 1990, Republican George H.W. Bush struggled with a recession brought on by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the S&L meltdown and surprise,surprise Democrats opposed his agenda.
In 1993, Democrat Bill Clinton ran on “the worst economy in the last 50 years” … two years after the economy had swung back into positive growth. He and Hillary still lay claim to all the “peace and prosperity” of the 90s as if they had anything to do with the dot com bubble that was fueled by new technology and the low level of international threats that 12 years of strong Republican leadership had brought about.
Clinton slashed America’s military and intelligence networks to the point that our enemies were emboldened enough to attack us on 9/11. The dot com bubble burst (as all bubbles do) and NASDAQ melted down. In 2001, as Republican George W. Bush struggled with all of this, Democrats opposed his agenda. The recession ended anyway and until 2008, we were prosperous and safe under President Bush.
The current recession can be traced directly to policies that were emplaced by Carter, Clinton and Democratic Congresses. Bush got blamed for it, but it was the Democratic majority (who ran on and got elected in 2006 largely by bashing the Iraq War) who blocked all of Bush’s efforts to forestall what everyone who was watching could see was coming. (And they gave themselves a standing ovation during Bush’s speech for having done so.)
The recession hit, as predicted, then in large part because Americans don’t know much about economics and the MSM did a terrible job of educating us, we now have — for the first time since FDR — an all Democrat government in charge DURING a recession. It’s their turn to fix the economy again and God help us but I see no reason to suppose they learned anything from The Great Depression.
Already, because of their big ol’ “stimulus” spending, our national debt is now growing by $1 million every 20 seconds. (I’m not saying Republicans haven’t taken too many turns at the trough. But compared to Democrats, I think porky GOPers look like real amateurs.) And don’t forget the Baby Boomers are retiring and adding an ever increasing burden to underfunded city, state and federal pension and health plans.
I think the chances are more than good that Democrats will worsen rather than end this recession. From where I’m sitting, the only thing Democrats truly excel at is sitting on the sidelines criticizing and whining. Cripes, even now, nine months after Bush left office, they can’t resist blaming him for their failures.
Nov 4, 2009: Senator Lindsey Grahm said Obama has screwed up on Gitmo. “You know, he announces on the first day of his being inaugurated that he’s going to close Guantanamo Bay and he didn’t do the hard stuff.” A White House aide suggested their work is handicapped by chaotic records left by the previous administration.
SPEED BUMP TWO: The electorate has changed. The people who make up the “tea party/townhall” faction are people who have never been active and vocal in politics before. Their effect on an election three years from now cannot be predicted. We’re not supporting Democrat programs or listening as naively to their lapdog media as we did just six months ago and I’ve seen no evidence that Democrats – especially not the Big One – have the character or the backbone to make hard decisions and stand firm in the face of criticism.
SPEED BUMP THREE: The economy only drives elections if there isn’t something BIGGER on the table. From what I’ve been reading, our enemies abroad find Obama’s Carter-Clinton approach to foreign policy (Talk Softly and Carry A Big Smile ) to be very enticing. And emboldening.
Today was the anniversary of Carter’s hostage nightmare in Iran that ended literally minutes after Reagan took the oath of office. Planning for the 9/11 attack began more than four years before Bush took office … right around the time the weak, anti-military Clinton got re-elected. Obama made his anti-military beliefs abundantly clear years ago, so I’m thinking our enemies aren’t going to wait for him to get re-elected. I’m thinking they started planning how to hurt us again last November … right after the election results were broadcast world-wide.
ATTACHED: USS New York arrives in New York – Nov 2 2009
Carter got booted after one term because he let our people molder for 444 days and I saw a lot of liberals convert to the right because of 9/11. We’ve seen how Obama handles himself in a crisis. Remember the Somali pirates? The man is a coward. A weenie. A lightweight. The Left may think we want a kinder, gentler country, but if we get attacked again … especially if it’s a WMD … the Left is going to find itself dealing with a big bunch of enraged Mama and Papa Bears who want a steely warrior, not a smiley clown in charge.
SPEED BUMP FOUR: This one goes the other way. We Conservatives need to get our act together and the GOP needs to figure out if they want to be a right wing party or not. Cuz … like … with friends like Deirdre, who needs enemies?
VIDEO: Ben Stein on CNN [:44] @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL60W_aHseg
ATTACHED: Five political cartoons about the election results
SOURCE:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/04/gop-democrats-different-views-republican-victories/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/03/upstate-new-york-congressional-election-attracts-rare-national/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/04/tea-partiers-hone-skills-in-ny-house-race/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/a_liberal_whiff_of_panic.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/forget_the_21_spin_it_was_a_ro.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/04/graham-obama-screwed-closing-gitmo/
