{"id":191,"date":"2009-11-02T16:33:09","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T23:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=191"},"modified":"2009-12-23T11:29:18","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T18:29:18","slug":"what-will-tuesday%e2%80%99s-voting-mean-hughhewitt-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/02\/what-will-tuesday%e2%80%99s-voting-mean-hughhewitt-com\/","title":{"rendered":"What Will Tuesday\u2019s Voting Mean? | HughHewitt.com | 11.02.09"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have all heard the prognosticators by now. \u00a0The fate of the Administration\u2019s health care legislation could be sealed tomorrow, when voters in Virginia and New Jersey pick their new governors \u2013 or not.<\/p>\n

It has become something of a superstition in Washington that if the two Democratic candidates go down in defeat, next year will be 1994 all over again. \u00a0That was when the GOP took back Congress after (on the House side) decades in the wilderness.<\/p>\n

As of this morning, Virginia can be considered a done deal. \u00a0I live in the DC area, so am exposed daily to the two Virginia gubernatorial campaigns. \u00a0A good campaign has a clear message. \u00a0It speaks to the moment and to the candidate\u2019s plans for addressing voter concerns. \u00a0It conveys a perspective on government. \u00a0It merges the candidate\u2019s public personal and that perspective with his or her program. \u00a0Each comes to validate the others, giving voters confidence both in follow-through and flexibility to meet the unforeseen demands that will come during four years in office.<\/p>\n

The GOP candidate in Virginia, Bob McDonnell, is running one of the best I have ever seen. \u00a0I am sure that I have seen worse campaigns than the one Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate, is running, but I can\u2019t think when. \u00a0Had this year been last year, Deeds would have been able to embrace the president and been swept through on his message. \u00a0But in 2009 that message isn\u2019t selling in Virginia, and Mr. Deeds has nothing of his own to say.<\/p>\n

New Jersey is another story. \u00a0As of Friday, the daily report from the Rasmussen polling organization (see http:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com<\/span><\/a> ) showed Republican Chris Christie still leading (though barely) incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey it still makes sense for a Democrat to embrace a president whose national approval ratings leave him no longer a reliable plus for his party. \u00a0So Mr. Corzine is calling his campaign \u201cYes We Can 2.0\u201d, and the president is stumping for him almost daily. \u00a0But the governor is also one of the wealthiest men in the nation, having shared the CEO position at Goldman Sachs with former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson before getting the boot in a C-suite dustup. \u00a0He has outspent Mr. Christie by\u2026 well, at last count is was over five to one, but the final tally will undoubtedly climb much higher.<\/p>\n

If a Democrat has to spend that kind of money to win an election in a state that in recent years has voted consistently Democratic, what does it say about his victory as a national indicator? \u00a0Only that Democrats in Congress won\u2019t be able to draw a breath of relief if he squeaks through. \u00a0If New Jersey goes Corzine by a hair, it will still be bad news for the Democrats nationally. \u00a0If it goes for Christie, look for a run on security blankets in the House Democratic caucus on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Though it is not well understood in the media, the battleground in American politics today is a particular kind of voter. \u00a0That citizen cast his ballot for George W. Bush and a GOP member of Congress in 2004. \u00a0Between then and 2008, he or she began voting Democrat.<\/p>\n

Several issues moved this voter, but the anchor — the one he or she was most concerned about — was Federal spending. \u00a0Before 2006, he or she had voted primarily Republican, because the GOP said it was the party of limited government and limited spending. But starting in 2005, this voter stopped believing that line. \u00a0A big spending Republican Congress and a Republican president unwilling to veto a single spending bill took their toll.<\/p>\n

Party professionals tell me that 2008 exit polls showed that the Obama victory margin came from Republican voters who expected the kind of sharp leftward turn we have seen. They didn\u2019t care. \u00a0They wanted to teach their own party\u2019s leadership a lesson. \u00a0Recent polls have Republican voters still deeply suspicious of the GOP in Congress. \u00a0The collapse of support for the highly liberal Republican candidate in New York\u2019s 23rd congressional district in favor of the Conservative Party nominee was another sign of the disgust of former loyalists with the GOP. \u00a0This suspicion is one thing that the Democrats still have going for them.<\/p>\n

The betting now is that Tuesday\u2019s election will not prove enormously conclusive. \u00a0The betting is wrong. \u00a0However it turns out, the election is already speaking volumes about where the disaffected GOP vote \u2013 the swing vote in American politics — stands today.<\/p>\n

In Virginia we know the answer. \u00a0They have gone home. This probably tells us a lot about the prospects for moderate Democrats outside of major metropolitan areas all over the country.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, a narrow Democratic victory and even more a loss will signal significant Democratic weakness inside the major metropolitan areas. \u00a0The GOP\u2019s heartbeat is back, much stronger than was expected only a few months ago.<\/p>\n

Finally, the race in New York-23 already shows that GOP voters remain fed up with the politics of label trumping the politics of principal. \u00a0A product of the local GOP organization, the Republican candidate blamed outsiders for the collapse of her campaign. \u00a0\u00a0But NY-23 is one of those districts that went for Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008. \u00a0Those outsiders only pointed out that if elected she would have proven the kind of congressperson that had made the typical American swing voter turn away from the GOP in the first place.<\/p>\n

So here is the verdict that this year\u2019s election has already handed down. \u00a0Establishments in both parties are on notice. \u00a0The key swing voters of the past half-decade want change. \u00a0And what the change they have received to date is not change they believe in, from establishments on either side of the aisle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have all heard the prognosticators by now. \u00a0The fate of the Administration\u2019s health care legislation could be sealed tomorrow, when voters in Virginia and New Jersey pick their new governors \u2013 or not. It has become something of a superstition in Washington that if the two Democratic candidates go down in defeat, next year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-commentary-general","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}