johnxavier

thoughts on tonight's results

this is like christmas morning and the super bowl wrapped into one for politicos and pundits alike… a few (relatively obvious) notes on a very interesting evening in politics:

• the gov races in nj & va were very much more about corzine-christie and deeds-mcdonnell than a referendum on the obama and his administration’s policy initiatives.
• not surprisingly, the “obama coalition” that voted in 2008 did not come out to support deeds and corzine. like any off year election, this was always going to an asset to the conservatives, whose demographics (and “enthusiasm gap”) were always going to be a considerable problem for dems, particularly the two lackluster candidates representing the party in these states.
• to this point, take a look at the youth vote. 9% of all voters in nj came from the 18-29 y/o age group, compared to 17% last november. that same demographic for va: 10% this year compared to 21% lat year.
• tonight shows that this year was a bad time for incumbents and status quo. consider bloomberg dropped nearly $100 million of his own money into the nyc mayoral race and had a less than comfortable time winning his third term.
• ny-23’s a bit of a head scratcher. hoffman was odds on favorite to win after scozzafava dropped out and subsequently backed owens. i’m guessing it was hoffman the candidate that lost it for him - not living in the district, funded by out of town interests, and not too sharp on the local issues. had hoffman never entered the race, scozza would have coasted to victory; instead, north country will be represented by a dem for the first time since roughly the civil war.
• what now of the beck/palin/etc conservative crowd challenging moderate republicans in primaries? as impressive as these folks may be when they flex their fundraising/partisan muscle, tpaw, palin, and the like could learn a thing or two from newt and realize that you can’t run only tea-bag friendly republicans and have a political voice worth a damn in washington.
• there will be alot of noise over the next year about a turning tide in politics, but only two things matter to the dems in 2010 and obama in 2012 - the economy/jobs and afghanistan (notwithstanding some event on the scale of 9/11 or the 2008 financial meltdown). if the economy is doing well and news of allied forces casualties isn’t on headlines daily, you’ll see the democrats stay in power for the upcoming years.
• while votes are still being counted up in maine, it’s yet another troubling election night for marriage equality advocates and supporters.

i’ll end my political drivel there… still, a really interesting night for politics.