Off-year elections are usually not particularly interesting, but in the current case there are some very important questions to be answered, in particular whether the public’s strong reaction against elitist positions in both major political parties in the past year will translate to changes in voting preferences, S. T. Karnick writes.
Governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia are expected to be bellwethers, with Virginia looking likely to go Republican and the race in strongly Democrat-leaning New Jersey unexpectedly close according to pre-election polls, even though the Democrat candidate has strong support from Obama, access to unlimited campaign funds, and is the incumbent.
The biggest harbinger of the future, however, is in the race for a House seat in upstate New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
The Republicans nominated political progressive Dede Scozzafava, who drew intense fire from conservatives and party activists for her support of unlimited legal abortions, government-eforced endorsement of same-sex marriages, and Obama’s economic stimulus spending plan.
Despite these positions, or perhaps because of them, Scozzafava won the endorsements of Republican Party leader Michael Steele and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. These individuals and local party leaders were greatly embarrassed as Scozzafava was forced to withdraw from the race last weekend because she was running third in the polls behind Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty won points with the Republican/Conservative grassroots by endorsing Hoffman early in the race.
Further embarrassing the Republican Party leadership, Scozzafava endorsed Democrat Owens in the race.
David Carney, former political director for George W. Bush, was quoted in a Bloomberg News story as correctly identifying the real meaning of the situation as emblematic of the citizenry pushing the Republican Party to be a truly classical liberal alternative to the open statism of the Democrat Party:
David Carney, a former political director for President George H.W. Bush, said Scozzafava was pressured out by voters, not party leaders.
“The political elite missed the point,” he said. “It’s the voters having a say.”
With the Democrats strongly positioning themselves as the party of elitism and socialism, the New York congressional race clearly shows that the public wants a truly liberal alternative and that they don’t care what it calls itself as long as it stands up against statist intrusions into personal, family, and community choices.
Amusingly, the press see the situation in gross ideological terms, as exemplified by CBS news director Bob Shieffer’s assessment:
"[R]ight now I think the hard right is driving the train in the Republican Party. And I think this is the snapshot of where all that is right now, a very interesting development there."
As Schieffer’s statement makes clear, the elitists of both parties cannot see that the real divide in the nation is not between Republicans and Democrats or between modern liberals and conservatives; it’s between the people and the elites, between classical liberals and statists.
Expect this divide between liberals and elitists to be increasingly evident in the coming months. If the Republicans (or, far less likely, the Democrats) listen to the outcry and alter their ways accordingly, they’ll prosper in next fall’s elections.
If not, both parties will undoubtedly pay a heavy price by making an alternative, populist-oriented party increasingly viable.
–S. T. Karnick
I think both you guys make great points. I fear that you’re right, Jim, that the election results have scared the Hell out of the Obamabots and in reaction they’ll try to cram as much of their agenda down our throats as fast as they can before the voters get the chance to really pull the plug on the whole ugly deal. The upside is that the so-called Blue Dogs won’t want to be found complicit in 11/10 and may roadblock those plans more effectively than the Republicans can.
Sam, as far as the Republicans’ legendary ability to miss an obvious opportunity, yeah there is always that. But I’ve never seen the base as motivated and involved as it is today and I think we may see future Party screw-ups face the same sort of intervention we just saw in NY 23. Obama may just be the best thing to happen to conservatism since Reagan.
The Hoffman race was an egregious case of GOP incompetence. Since this was a special election, there was no real primary per se. Scozzafava was picked by the party, and backed to the hilt despite the fact that she was as “neo-liberal” and statist as it gets. The party spent almost a million dollars pumping up Scozzafava. The penniless Hoffman was polling in the single digits just a couple of months ago — yet he almost wins yesterday.
Consider this: The GOP national party not only wasted $900k on a liberal Republican candidate, she only stopped taking and spending the party’s money three days before the election. Then she promptly threw her support behind the Democrat.
If Hoffman had been running as the GOP candidate from the beginning, including all that national party financial support, it seems pretty likely that he can win that race. Indeed, Scozzafava was still on the ballot (naturally) and even received much GOP voter support from people who voted early and absentee. Take all those extremely unusual factors away, and Hoffman’s the new congressman from Upstate New York.
So, yes. If the GOP national office can screw up that badly in NY-23, they’re certainly capable of much fouling up down the line.
I think your analysis is very astute, Jim. The support for Hoffman is impressive and suggests that if the Dems and GOP don’t choose to pay more attention to the wishes of the people a third party will become quite viable.
I was surprised by how well the Republican governor candidates ran in VA and NJ. VA was expected to be much closer, and NJ was seen as a tossup. This shows that if the GOP truly attempts to recast itself as a classical liberal alternative to the statist Democratic party, it can make great headway. However, I would never underestimate the capacity for Republicans to fumble a golden opportunity.
I believe that Obama and the Democrat Party will carry on as they have done because they truly believe in their approach to governance. That will increase the opportunity for a classical liberal party to take the government in the next three years and begin to reverse the past couple of decades of statist incursions, if not those of the past century.
Excellent analysis, as usual, Sam. Even though Hoffman lost, the fact that he got so close on a “third party” ticket (and he doesn’t even live in the district) is pretty impressive.
The more significant results are those in Virginia and New Jersey — especially the latter. Obama won New Jersey by 15 percentage points. It’s hard to get “bluer” than that. And the Republican candidate — a pro-life, small-government guy who emphasized lower taxes and lower spending — won by a healthy 5 percentage points. This despite being outspent by multi-millionaire Jon Corzine and the fact that as late as last Sunday, Obama was stumping for his buddy. What that tells me is that Obamaism is in big, big trouble.
Yes, the lefty pundits will point to exit polls showing that 50 to 60 percent of voters said Obama was not a factor in their voting. But that still means that 40 to 50 percent did say where Obama is trying to take the country was a factor in what were essentially local races. Besides, those Obama fans who are now downplaying yesterday’s results would certainly be trumpeting them as an endorsement of Obama’s leftist agenda had the results gone the other way.
What happened yesterday is very good news for genuine liberalism. The only remaining question is whether the Dems in Congress and Obama will ramble down their statist road even faster and more recklessly, or slow down as the 2010 midterms approach. I’m hoping for the latter, but expecting the former. When your goal is to “remake America,” the opinion of the people takes a back seat.