Sarah Palin called last night’s elections “A Victory for Common Sense and Fiscal Sanity”, and on the whole, I’m inclined to agree with her:
Congratulations to the new Governors-Elect of Virginia and New Jersey! I’d also like to offer a special word of support to the new Lieutenant Governor-Elect of New Jersey, Kim Guadagno, the first woman to hold that office.
Of course, the real victors in this election are the ordinary men and women who voted for positive change and a return to fiscal sanity. Your voices have been heard.
The race for New York’s 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010. The issues of this election have always centered on the economy—on the need for fiscal restraint, smaller government, and policies that encourage jobs. In 2010, these issues will be even more crucial to the electorate. I commend Doug Hoffman and all the other under-dog candidates who have the courage to put themselves out there and run against the odds.
To the tireless grassroots patriots who worked so hard in that race and to future citizen-candidates like Doug, please remember Reagan’s words of encouragement after his defeat in 1976:
The cause goes on. Don’t get cynical because look at yourselves and what you were willing to do, and recognize that there are millions and millions of Americans out there that want what you want, that want it to be that way, that want it to be a shining city on a hill.
The cause goes on.
—Sarah Palin
In retrospect, it’s nothing short of amazing that Hoffman came within two points of winning in NY-23; from a conservative point of view, he was clearly the best candidate in the race, but that doesn’t mean he was a particularly effective candidate. Certainly, having the GOP machine working against him and spending close on a million dollars to the ultimate benefit of Democrat Bill Owens didn’t help, but an even bigger issue is that he ran a poor campaign, while Owens ran a far better one. That he came that close despite the weakness of his campaign and Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens (which packed considerable punch, given her far greater name recognition and the Hoffman campaign’s low profile in much of the district) shows the appeal of conservative ideas. Michelle Malkin is right to say,
NY-23 is a victory for conservatives who refuse to be marginalized in the public square by either the unhinged left or the establishment right. A humble accountant from upstate New York exposed the hypocrisy of GOP leaders trying to solicit funds from conservatives by lambasting Pelosi and the Dems’ support for high taxes, Big Labor, and bigger government—while using conservatives’ money to subsidize a high-taxing, Big Labor-pandering, bigger government radical. The repercussions will be felt well beyond NY-23’s borders. Conservatives’ disgust with the status quo has been heard and felt. They have been silent too long. They will be silent no more.
The GOP leadership knows it cannot afford to rest on its laurels, continue business as usual, and bask in yesterday’s electoral victories without confronting its abysmal abdication of principled conservative leadership in NY-23.
As Hoffman said in his concession speech, “This is only one fight in the battle.”
Onward. Upward. Rightward.
The truth is, while it’s definitely a downer that Hoffman’s half-court shot rimmed out at the buzzer, he was a JV player called up as a fill-in; had the varsity been doing its job, someone with a better shot would have been out there. His defeat is an indictment of the GOP establishment in New York, not of the principles Hoffman espoused—and compared to what the varsity did in New Jersey and Virginia, it’s ultimately far less significant.
As C. Edmund Wright says, the fact that the NY GOP screwed up the playcalling in their race only changes the dimensions of the overall rout, not the fact that the Democrats got routed. Bob McDonnell blew out Creigh Deeds for the governor’s office in supposedly-blue Virginia (perhaps scaring three Democratic first-termers in the House in the process), and Chris Christie won his gubernatorial race in true-blue New Jersey by an unexpectedly comfortable margin, despite the presence of an independent candidate. While these races weren’t referenda on the President, Michael Barone points out that they’ve served as useful indicators of national political trends before, and the voting patterns in these races suggest that they may do so again. Along with that, Maine(!) voted down same-sex marriage by a solid (though not overwhelming) margin, making defenders of the traditional definition of marriage a perfect 31 for 31 in state referenda.
Jay Cost makes an important point when he says one must be careful not to over-interpret electoral results, but the conclusions he does draw seem to jibe with the results of Gallup’s latest polling: having swung to the left in reaction to George W. Bush’s second term, giving the Democrats their big victories of 2006 and 2008, the electorate now appears to be swinging back to the right in reaction to the opening of Barack Obama’s time in office. Will this add up to a big year for the Republicans in 2010? Who knows? It could, though. If it does, I just hope those who profit from the swing are true Republicans, conservatives with integrity, not more of the same elite/establishment types who led the party to the debacle of the last two election cycles.
Can there be any question that this is a center-right country? It takes eight years to swing away from Dubya, and then not even a full year to start swinging away from Obama, even though most of Obama's time is being spent trying (and failing) to clean up Dubya's many tremendous messes.
I mean, Obama's legacy is already being talked about. His presidency is already being judged. He hasn't even been in office for a full year.
Oh well. I guess I can get ready for two more unjust preemptive wars, hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, a new record deficit, some more torture scandals and another recession in 2012 when we swing fully right again.
Eh, while I disagree with your projection of what another Republican presidency would look like–and while I'd point out that GWB was also being judged before he'd been in office a full year (just go back and look at some of the stuff being written during the summer of '01, before 9/11 changed everything)–and while I do agree that the country on the whole tilts somewhere on the right side of center: I wouldn't interpret this as "swinging away from Obama." Rather, I'd interpret it as pulling Obama back toward the center-left position he represented himself as standing in during the general campaign. Clinton got a similar slap in the face in '93, and again in '94 when his administration didn't moderate; then he moved to the center in '95, backed the GOP into a corner (and won the staring contest when they stupidly shut down the federal government), and won re-election in '96. If the President takes this to heart and starts governing as a left-centrist instead of pushing massive nationalization programs, 2010 may still be a bumpy year for his party (depending on many factors out of his or anyone else's control), but he'll probably win again in 2012. If he doesn't . . . well, then I'd bet we'll be inaugurating President Palin that January. (Because in the end, what other plausible conservative candidate does the GOP have? Anyone who thinks the party base will go for another Bush/McCain type is fooling themselves.)