The Lessons of Election ‘09
It's time to relearn what some of us seem to have forgotten.
And so the somewhat sordid tale of the 2009 election season — our meager dose of political catnip in an off-year — has drawn to a close, leaving Republicans and conservatives with a bit of a hangover and lingering questions of where to catch the bus. The sideshows taking place in Virginia, New Jersey, and an obscure, mountainous patch of upstate New York will now give way to the real battle of the 2010 midterms, which kick off in earnest today. But did we learn anything?
The easy headlines have already been picked off and pretty much wrote themselves. Republicans “pull two out of three!” The contingent of motivated activists who consider themselves the only true conservatives in America were pounding their chests, convinced that they had unwrapped the last of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. This must surely be the moment when they would seize the wheel of power and drive the godless RINOs and squishy moderates from the party as they march toward victory.
Really? Let’s start off our tour in the Empire State’s 23rd district. Thanks to a flood of out-of-state money and what many of the locals considered an embarrassing amount of national media attention, the Republican candidate was hounded out of the race for the sin of being too liberal. In her place, a disgruntled champion of the state’s Conservative Party grabbed headlines across the nation, causing no shortage of ill will among national GOP leaders and potential presidential candidates in the process. And the result? The seat still wound up going to the Democrats, the party which had managed to avoid holding it since civil war veterans were voting. Before you begin feeling too badly, though, the loss doesn’t portend as much as you may think. The bad news is that, even had Hoffman prevailed, it wouldn’t have meant what you thought either.
People were busily painting this as some sort of a proxy battle between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. How embarrassing is it to lose to Joe Biden? But in reality, Hoffman’s national supporters forgot the rule of thumb when it comes to third-party candidates: they are there to spoil the chances of the favorite. Hoffman’s campaign was an aberration in that he so spoiled the dominant party’s candidate that she was driven from the field of battle, but he still wound up performing the normal function and handing the win to the opponent’s team.
New Jersey was, in some ways, an even stranger story. Chris Christie’s surprisingly comfortable margin of victory will clearly go down on paper as one more in the win column for the GOP. But careful observers are taking away a somewhat deeper message. First, they know that Jon Corzine should have never even gotten close to winning this one, and the only reason he did was the fractious nature of the New Jersey Republican Party and the obstinate tenacity of Chris Daggett. And what of the governor-elect himself? Is he a “real conservative” who will lead us out of the wishy-washy marsh of John McCain’s “Gang of 14″ nightmare?
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Jazz Shaw is a heretical, Northeastern former RINO and regular columnist at The Moderate Voice. He can be reached at jazzshaw@gmail.com.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
31 Comments
1. S. Weasel:Jesus. Can you ‘moderates’ not spend TEN SECONDS off our cases? We had a good night, our one disappointment was in a squeaker, can we just relax for a second and enjoy it?
I thought the social conservatives were supposed to be the purse-lipped scolds…
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:04 am 2. baby boomer:Sorry-
But I just have to quote Ace Ventura…
I so happy.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:09 am 3. misanthropicus:Obama’s glow is gone? But the Obama-jugendisation is schools goes a brisk pace.
Breitbart’s Big Hollywood has just posted 11 more videos with teens and toddlers performing adorational songs for the One – you’ll see them all on Breitbart, and you simply won’t believe that the 3rd. Reich and North Korea have moved and comfortably live in America:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/11/04/elementary-epidemic-11-uncovered-videos-show-school-children-performing-praises-to-obama/
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:14 am 4. Fred Beloit:Jazz say: “But the whole time, McDonnell looked more like he was running away from the Republican Party than running on their ticket.”
Interesting. In what way does one look like they are running away from their party? Are their little legs propelling them rapidly toward the other party, as in Scozzafava’s case? Or is it that, like Obama during the election, McDonnell was watching an HBO movie about Obama?
I hope the HBO film showed how Obama pulled a Gitmo on the Yucca Mountain facility, throwing away tens of billions of taxpayer money and leaving no place for growing stocks of nuclear waste to go.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:23 am 5. Ratatosk:Good column, just too bad the Palin Parade won’t listen to reason. The GOP could have easily scored a win there if not for extremists and ideologues.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:29 am 6. Ruebacca:Hoffman gave us a chance. Before him it was lib vs lib. Dede would have voted for Obamas legislation and made it “bipartisan”.
If we are going Marxist and going to central planing for the economy. The Democrats own it and need to defend it.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:34 am 7. Kipling:Mr. Jazz’s post is such an absolute mess of contradictions and uninformed commentary that it is hard to know where to begin. So, let me limit it to two points.
First, all politics is not always local and to make such a claim ignores the realities of modern politics. All three candidates in NY-23 received money and support from outside their district. All three brought in big national names to give them credence and rally support. The Democratic and Republican Congressional Committees funneled money raised nationally into their campaigns. While politics cannot ignore the locality, it is hardly strictly local any more.
Second, no one but the elitist party bosses are telling the voters in the districts who to choose as their candidate. In NY-23 the elite moderate party bosses in the Republican Party obviously ignored their voters and chose a liberal RINO whose candidacy went down in flames. Hoffman offered a valid alternative. It was his right to run and the right of others to support that candidacy. The real question here is why does Mr. Jazz and other moderates have a problem with Conservatives?
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:39 am 8. Kipling:To Ratatosk @5: You moderate/liberals always whine when you don’t get your way and when Conservatives refuse to be the brain-dead foot soldiers of the Republican Party. The simple fact is that Hoffman would have won if Scozzafava and her liberal Republican supporters had pitched in for the good of the party. Or, if the moderate/liberal elitist party bosses had chosen a canidated the voter could stomach in the first place.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:42 am 9. ETAB:There are several things to consider about the Nov 3 elections.
The first, and we shouldn’t ignore this, is the White House’s public statement that Obama wasn’t watching the returns. That says it all; it says that Obama is utterly indifferent to the Voice of the People. Don’t ignore this.
Obama’s Rule is that you either agree, sycophantly, with him. Or you don’t exist. We cannot ignore this mindset. Remember that he and the White House also ignored the Tea Parties, the Town Halls, and have tried to drive through their agenda by denigating Congress to an irrelevant rubber stamp – ‘don’t read the bill just pass it’. Debate and criticism are rejected by this Obama realm.
The second issue is that Americans are fiscal conservatives – and don’t want a big government authoritarian welfare socialist state. They don’t want what Obama is setting up. They want small, non-intrusive government, low taxes that enable small businesses to prosper in a market economy, and fair wages that are market rather than union-driven.
Third, with regard to social issues, these must be decided by the people not by government. This means that some issues will be private; others will be local or state issues but decided by referendum.
As for Jass Shaw’s disgruntled and chestpounding views, and his support for the ’sin of liberalism’ (I’m using his biased rhetoric), he is displaying a deep lack of understanding of the American people. Scozzafava was hardly driven from the race by Hoffman, and if she was, that says that she didn’t represent the Republican view. She was driven from the race because she was misrepresenting herself; she’s a leftist, a radical socialist and was taking votes away from Owen.
Hoffman’s near win says that the Republicans have to remember their reality; they are not a version of Democratic socialism. They have a fiscally conservative, small government agenda. The power of ‘how to live’ rests with the people. Republicans are not in favor of the big government welfare state. They do not represent all the social liberal issues of the day – indeed, social issues are left up to the people to decide. They are not issues for a political party to decide.
The Republican party would do well to consider these results of the Nov 3 elections.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:47 am 10. skydiver:Ratatosk #5:
GOP would not scored. Ruebacca got it precisely right. If GOP, My party, behaves like that again, they will never see anothe penny from me. I think I’m ready for another major party, Conservative Party, and May the GOP go into history. And by the way, Problems start with Social Issues. So Social Conservative aspect of conservative party is not a bad thing. Or should I say a GOOD thing. How is the gang rape in California working for you???? Any Problems with Illegal immigration????
As far as I’m concerned, Conservatives won. Count me in!
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:49 am 11. Gracie:It doesn’t all appear to be about Obama. New jersey is an economical mess.
Look at Dede, pathetic candidate to be on Republican ticket!
She was a liberal, disguised as a conservative republican…
Be more careful in picking candidates.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:55 am 12. Anonymous:“The GOP could have easily scored a win there if not for extremists and ideologues.”
You mean the way we did with Arlen Specter?
Err…No thanks.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:56 am 13. jd:The benefitst of the NY23 outcome;
1) Owens will NEVER betray the grass roots Republican base!
2) Owens will NEVER give bi-partisan cover to democrats for bad legislation (cap-n-tax et al)!
3) Owens will NEVER pull the rug out from under Republican leadership in a floor fight regarding principle!
Yet Owens overall voting record will have little to distinguish it from that of the RINO we defeated.
jd
Do Not Feed the RINOs!
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:03 am 14. Sherab Zangpo:What did we learn ?
Simple, we learned that
IT IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO FIGHT AGAINST THE TOTALITARIANS AND IT IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO DEFEND FREEDOM.
Yes, we knew that already but we had become a little rusty, hadn’t we ?
Now we have a whole year to learn and teach Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, more and more, until we get to the mid term elections and we kick out of Congress all the commies we can, all the racists we can, all the murderers of babies we can, all the radical subversive internationalists we can.
And then more.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:14 am 15. WestWright:Kipling I think that Jazz and his brothers like Frum, Brooks, and assorted other moderate Lefties are infiltrators and their advice is all misinformation.
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:15 am 16. Rochf:I don’t bother to read anything Jazz writes, it is WORTHLESS!
You accuse Conservatives of wanting pure candidates, and then you go on to bash Christie as not being conservative. So what’s your point? All politics is local only in the sense that people have to vote locally–the message right now to the GOP is–either run fiscal conservatives, or get out of the way. Most conservatives I know would support fiscal conservatives even if they’re not socially conservative, but Dede was neither, and the sooner that the GOP and the rest of the whiners recognize that, the faster we move on to 2010. In this case rejecting Dede only meant that conservatives were rejecting a Democrat in Republican clothing, not rejecting a RINO–she wasn’t even that.
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:26 am 17. Tex Taylor:Jazz Shaw is as equally worthless as Obama and his clan of White House toadies…if Obama had any sense of proportion, this is the kind of “moderate” lackey Obama would hire to pen his speeches.
Either way, Shaw’s recommendations and Obama’s implementations are losing propositions for the collective nation.
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:27 am 18. goy:@13. jd: – The benefitst of the NY23 outcome;
Good observations, jd.
Here’s another one: Owens won a bumpy victory in a conservative district partly because he opposes a government option / socialized medicine and supports health care cost reduction for its own sake (not as a side-effect of the feds seizing that sector).
Other than troll bait for (more) irrational attacks on Palin and Beck, Owens’ only practical value to the P-O-R junta during the year he’ll be in office would have been to support BHO’s legacy-defining issue (i.e., laying the groundwork for socialism by seizing control of the health care industry).
Given all this, and the fact that conservative support for Hoffman’s candidacy exposed the choice of the GOP’s so-called ‘leadership’ as Arlen-in-unfashionable-drag, NY23 has turned out to be a pretty big win for the Republic, IMHO. A Hoffman win, while nice, would only have been icing on all that. And since the NYS GOP has now gotten the message (”no dollars for DIABLOs”), they’re unlikely to make the same mistake next year.
On topic, it’s looking like the lessons of ‘09 are going to be pretty close to the lessons of ‘93-94, during which time HillaryCare languished on life-support for months (kinda like O-Care has done), and then predictably expired when it became a midterm election campaign issue (kinda like O-Care is doing).
Looks like history is repeating in at least a few interesting ways.
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:45 am 19. blackwell:Provide “a choice not an echo.”
Oppose taxes.
Oppose sweetheart union deals.
Don’t become corrupt pols-like the GOP had become.
Get union parasites off the schools.
Appoint competent people.
Talk over the media to the voters.
Ignore gay marriage-just ignore it.
Find someone to run for Pres in 2012.
Do this and you’ll restore the GOP brand as something to be trusted. Screw it up again and the voters will go somewhere else.
Nov 4, 2009 - 9:51 am 20. Bilgeman:Mr. Shaw:
“Really? Let’s start off our tour in the Empire State’s 23rd district.”
Yes, let’s.
“Thanks to a flood of out-of-state money and what many of the locals considered an embarrassing amount of national media attention, the Republican candidate was hounded out of the race for the sin of being too liberal.”
You focused like a laser and shot right past the point.
Can you give someone a bull’s-eye for such a spectacular miss?
The “moderate” candidate handpicked by the District’s “moderate” GOP establishment could only mount a full, grown-up type, campaign so long as nobody knew anything about her or her stance on the issues.
Once Ms. Sarah Palin spoke the words “DeDe Scozzafava”, DeDe turned into a lump of rancid dog-meat that stank so badly that only 6% of the district’s voters were willing to vote for her.
(Either that, or they didn’t RTFM…pick it).
Likewise, when Sarah Palin intoned :
“Joe Hoffman”, he almost took the seat…and he doesn’t even live in the district.
This is a fairly clear indicator that in New York’s 23rd CD the hacks, timeservers and busybodies who make up the county GOP chairmanships are so far out of touch with their respective bases that they might as well be holding their caucus on the dark side of the moon.
I won’t bother with the other two races, since I see absolutely no advantage to anyone not directly involved in trying to plumb the Stygian depths of New Jersey politcs.
And since I’m Virginian, and have been for forty years, I find your analysis of the Old Dominion race to be so clueless that it’s laughable.
Consider, though, that the estimable Mr, Deeds polled LESS votes than the Democrats who ran for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General each did.
That’s a harsh verdict on the politician, his politics, AND his campaign.
Nov 4, 2009 - 10:10 am 21. ETAB:Aparently, Obama, as the White House made it clear, was not watching the election returns last night. Obama is not interested in the Voice of the People. No way. So what was he doing?
As a true narcissist, focused only on Himself, Obama was watching a show about…Himself.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/11/04/obama-watched-hbo-special-about-himself-instead-election-results
Obama watched, again (he’s seen it already) a documentary about his campaign to be president.
I repeat, that with Obama, you either are a sychophant, or…you don’t exist. He’s not interested in what Americans, what The People, have to say. He’s the only one who exists.
Nov 4, 2009 - 10:35 am 22. ETAB:Here’s a comment on Obama, from Glenn Reynolds:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/04/lessons-from-election-night/
“As president, he seems confused and a bit distant on the issues, leaving the details to congressional Democrats and an ever-growing number of “czars” while he golfs and launches attacks at Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.”
Notice this – Obama delegates everything; he himself isn’t involved in policies.He isn’t involved in developing, analyzing or even explaining them. He’s not interested in America’s wellbeing or in Americans. All he is, is a campaigner for Himself.
And, “With the economy tanking (unemployment is much worse after Obama’s deficit-swelling stimulus than Obama’s advisers predicted it would be with no stimulus at all), with the promised post-partisanship dissolving into witch-hunts against hostile media and the promised post-racial America devolving into the awkwardly staged “beer summit,” with the “necessary war” in Afghanistan the subject of endless dithering and the promised “smart diplomacy” materializing as a series of awkward missteps by Hillary Clinton, the froth has become a lot less frothy.”
Right. Obama can’t handle criticism, so, he’ll devote himself to attacks against FOX news. He hasn’t a clue about the foreign affairs realities, and so, stumbles along with the policies of his radical leftists. These people support Chavez and reject the Honduran constitution; these people enable Iran to develop nuclear weapons..and..they’ve renamed the War on Terror to ‘overseas contingency operations’ (which removes any notion of who the bad guys are)…
Nov 4, 2009 - 10:59 am 23. John "birther" Samford:Nobody that counts has forgotten anything;
Nov 4, 2009 - 2:17 pm 24. jane:“It’s the economy, stupid!”
It was the Market drop in October of ‘08 that elected the Usurper. Not that he didn’t run a good campaign but if the market doesn’t tank, it was another Supreme Court election.
It’s not like nobody misses the FACT that the Economy started it’s downward slide AFTER the Dems took over Congress in ‘07. The dems are trying to pin that tail on the Bush donkey, but that won’t fool anybody new. Congress has the power of the purse, they are responsible for the economy. Which is why Congress will flip if the economy doesn’t improve dramatically over the next 10 months.
I personally think we will start the other side of the ‘W’ in January. A disappointing Christmas will finish off those retailers that have been barely holding on, waiting and hoping a good X-mas will buy them so more time.
2010 will be a watershed year in American history. Like 1774, 1860 and 1941.
I believe Jazz Shaw is a moderate on social issues. Fine. But can Jazz please explain this comment:
“But a quick look at his issues page reveals a candidate who might not exactly fit in at a Club for Growth meeting. Christie is very quick to point out that he is “pro-life” but then goes on to dissemble about the need to “reduce the number” of abortions and nibble around the edges with talk of parental notification. In fact, aside from using the pro-life buzz phrase, his position is barely discernible from that of Hillary Clinton during her failed presidential bid.”
I don’t understand this quote or what you are implying by it. That CFG people are social conservatives? Or that they are social moderates? I don’t think CFG is not about social issues at all. Does Jazz know something I don’t?
Nov 4, 2009 - 4:36 pm 25. Ken Royall:All politics is local? Is that how it happened when Obama swept in Democrats all over the nation? Is that how the Republican Revolution of 94 happened? Of course not, they were reactions to NATIONAL political conditions. In 94 it was a rebuke of Clinton and excess taxation and with Obama a rebuke of Bush and worries about the economy. Obama had “Hope and Change” and Newt had the Contract with America. Both strong, national themes although ultimately empty in Obama’s case.
The party that has the most energy and can swing the independents wins. Virginia and New Jersey were in the Obama camp, now not so much. Clearly the defection of white voters and independents to the Republican ticket is a reaction to Obama’s big government policies.
The fact that Hoffman, a guy who no longer lived in the district due to gerrymandering and had come out of nowhere a few weeks ago got that close is also due to concerns about RINO’s and liberal policies. He would have won easily if the moron who the Repubs put out there had backed out earlier on (or never been nominated). His opponent was pro-gun and anti-public option, Pelosi’s denials notwithstanding. Shaw is a blithering idiot once again.
Nov 4, 2009 - 6:27 pm 26. SukieTawdry:Jazz, you never did understand the point of what was going on in NY23, but that point was well made and, I believe, well taken.
In any event, NY23 will be moot after the next reapportionment if what I’m hearing is true.
Nov 4, 2009 - 8:27 pm 27. whiskey:Ny-23 according to Hotair was held by Dems … in the 1990’s. Don’t rely on CNN.
Nov 4, 2009 - 10:26 pm 28. Tristan Yates:When 40%+ of voters are still buying the liberal/progressive bill of goods, and Hoffman doesn’t quite make it over the top, that still means that we still have a ton of work to do. Way too many voters still believe that big government, if properly managed, can be the answer to all of their problems, which is of course in complete contradiction to the principles that this country was founded on and history in general. Also remember the Democrats are trending hard left, so we should be winning the center – but if they start running moderates, they could erase all the conservative gains.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with the Republican victories but am also trying to be realistic about the challenges we face. My fear is that things need to get worse before they get better.
Nov 4, 2009 - 10:54 pm 29. David, Sacramento:I don’t wanna hear crap about what this means without a simple analysis of the numbers. If you you dump the Republican vote on the Conservative vote, you get your plurality and the outcome is the opposite. This is the Ross Perot effect on a local scale.
-Let’s not forget that what happened 36 and 72 hours before voting.
-Let’s remember some people had already cast their absentee vote.
-Let’s not forget the “scorched earth” tactics of the Republican candidate by supporting her supposed ideological opposite.
As long as either major party puts party above ideals, they are both doomed to failure in the long term.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:55 am 30. Edward A.:For the GOP to lose a solid Republican seat in New York State should be a wake-up call. But, this ugly fight will continue to divide and destroy the Republican party as a national vehicle. The social conservatives will hold onto the south but the rest of the country will continue to back the traditional Republican candidates. The only winner in the fight will be the Democrats…is this the hidden goal?
Nov 5, 2009 - 8:55 am 31. myth buster:Ed, traditional Republican candidates are social conservatives. The Republican Party is the Anti-slavery party. It’s the Rockefellers who are trying to turn the Republican Party into something it is not, never was and never can be.
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:20 pm