Jim Ogonowski was supposed to be the beginning of the GOP’s surge into 2008. A victory in blue Massachusetts was going to give Republicans a big shot in the arm — a running start into recapturing at least one house of Congress, and maybe keeping the White House too.
Except that he lost.
Yesterday, a whole lot more Republicans lost. The Democrats took control of the Virginia Senate for the first time in 12 years, picking up 4 seats (and Mark Warner is looking very strong for the 2008 US Senate race). The Democrats took over the State House in Kentucky, easily pushing out incumbent but corruption-tarnished Republican Ernie Fletcher. And in Ohio, Democrats won hotly-contested local elections across the state. I have not heard reports from anywhere of any Republicans winning hotly-contested races — certainly, I haven’t heard of Republicans unseating incumbent Democrats.
These results, despite the Democrats’ generally lackluster performance in Washington, are pretty encouraging. Just imagine what could happen if they actually did what we sent them there to do!
UPDATE: kos has two interesting posts about the results, which together — and, I’d add, along with Ogo’s loss — suggest that illegal immigration may have run its course as a hot-button issue capable of adding votes to the GOP column.
“Just imagine what could happen if they actually did what we sent them there to do!”
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Just imagine what they might actualy be inclined do if people would wake up and stop cheering for THEIR victories even though they dont do anything at all.
Why should they do anything?
They have you right where they want you and they know you will keep coming back for more.
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Hooray !
But here’s a thought. Politics is somewhat like medicine: the first rule is “do no harm.” To me, that means, among other things, keeping loons like Mitch McConnell and John “it’s not pronounced ‘Boner,’ dammit!” Boehner out of Speaker/majority leader positions. Which means it’s generally good when Democrats win. Pelosi & Co. may not have delivered in some respects in the way some Dems were hoping, but at least they haven’t made things markedly worse.
Republicans took the Governorship of Louisiana recently, which has been historically Democratic. Kathleen Blanco didn’t run for re-election because of her poor handling of Katrina, but I think Katrina played a larger role in demographics: Heavily Democratic New Orleans lost half its population, a net loss of literally hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes in statewide races. If you include Ogo as part of this cycle, then the LA governor’s race was also part of this election cycle.
On Open Left, Chris Bowers has a provocatively titled diary called Michael Dukakis was a better candidate than John Kerry. Provocative because I thought that Dukakis’ campaign was a disaster. Kerry’s wasn’t great but it was no disaster.
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Bowers points out though that if you look at it demographic by demographic, Dukakis polled better in each demographic than Kerry did. So why did Dukakis lose by a wide margin and Kerry by a narrow one?
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Because the demographics are shifting Democratic.
Not so much.
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I find Bowers’ analysis both glib and naive and, in fact, full of the favorite full contact sport of reactionary intellectuals: self-loathing. I hear it all the time: Somehow, our candidate didn’t do enough… Somewhere, we screwed up… We just weren’t as good campaigners as the ‘other guy’. But how far can rationality go when the electorate is irrational?
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The defining characteristics of electoral politics in America for the last 40 years are fear and the resulting irrationality. Which is to say, it is the legacy of small minded men, mostly Republican but with a few Democrats like Lyndon Johnson, with shrivelled souls whose judgements and moral vision were far outpaced by their zeal for power and control. It is an increasingly more hysterical struggle (yes, even apart from bin Laden) because it’s a losing struggle (for all of us, yes, but) mostly for the Republicans. They can’t possibly win but they also aren’t rational so it doesn’t matter… The brave few, like Dukakis and Kerry and the hopeful, like Bill Clinton, pit themselves against this fear and for that they get nothing but bitter calumny and condemnation. There is a beautitude, however, which addresses that…
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Faced with irrationality and fear, some simpleminded ‘analysis’ based on rational assumptions about rational behaviour is decidedly naive. There’s no possible rational reason to vote for George Bush over John Kerry (the only possible rational reason to vote for Bush over Gore was that no one could possibly know how bad Bush could be) Faced with this, no possible blame attaches to either Kerry or Gore (or, for my money, Dukakis) as nothing they did contributes to the fear and irrationality: What would you have them do differently? What possible combination of courage, intellect and moral heft can be found outside of John Kerry that will magically flip the ‘vote’ switch? None. Same with Gore. What could/should he have done differently? Nothing.
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We’re going on seven solid years of ‘fearfearfearterrorterrorterrorgayswanttowedfearfear fear’, and the best that Bowers can come up with, insofar as ‘provocative’ goes, is this twaddle about how one Dem isn’t as bad as we thought he was when compared to how bad this other dem was… Crap! The GOP, the party that supports the military, is twisted beyond recognizable sanity and this guy comes out with some facile crap about how it’s John Kerry’s fault? Give me a break…
I see we have a rationalist here. You might, by the way, enjoy Bob Somerby’s site, The Daily Howler. His archives go back to the 2000 Bush-Gore race and they provide excellent coverage as to how the media mistreated Gore.
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Of course, on a purely rational level, I agree with you. It is difficult for me to grant any objective reason to have voted against Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, or Kerry.
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Candidates, regardless of what they stand for, in this age of television, soundbites, and very low information, run more or less successful campaigns that are good or bad at getting their message out. In a more rational republic, the responsibility of learning that message would lie squarely on the citizen but in a consumer culture like ours that “consumes” even candidates, the responsibility has shifted. It has become entirely the responsibility of the campaign. The history of my comments (example) shows I’m particularly unhappy with the theater criticism approach to evaluating potential presidents. It certainly drains principle, policy, and rational considerations from our public life.
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Given the unfortunate world in which we do live where fear, as you point out, wields a very powerful influence, voters do make choices based on who would win or who would run the best campaign. There was a widespread perception in 2004 that Kerry won the primary based on the perception that he would run the best campaign.
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The commentators on Open Left have been pointing out that Democrats are essentially running on the same platform as Walter Mondale did in 1984. Bowers’ point is that how well candidates campaign is secondary to the shift in demographics. You can think of it as one giant regression analysis. What factors had the most bearing on the election outcome? If it’s demographics, then we can stop worrying about who does the best marketing.
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Did you get chance to read Bowers’ article and not just my gloss on it?
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Of course I did. I’m insulted that asked.
I don’t know you well. I think I could only identify your comments by the liberality of the block quoting — and maybe the fact that I often I agree with you.
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I asked the question because your comment did seem like a better fit to my excerpts and the title of my comment than to Bowers’ article.
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But given the level of anonymity, I’m hoping you did not take my question personally.
but for the reasons you state, Louisiana is a truly unique case, not reproducible as a formula for GOP victory anywhere else.
Barbour did an at least acceptable job handing the crisis, Blanco flunked. Simple as that.
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First, of course, Barbour’s losing as an incumbent MS governor would have been the story of the year – I’m not aware that that election was ever considered close. Second, MS didn’t suffer the massive population dislocation that Cos mentions, so it’s not accurate to describe Barbour as “equally storm tossed.” Third, for all I know, Barbour may have done a decent job post-Katrina – as surprising as that would be for a Republican! đŸ˜‰
The re-election of an incumbent with generally positive ratings is not particularly interesting. Happens all the time, and will keep happening.
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Blanco did a poor job on Katrina and decided not to run for re-election, which set up a very different situation. If Barbour had failed similarly on Katrina maybe he’d also have decided not to run for re-election. We don’t know, because he didn’t face a situation even remotely similar: He did not have a major city underwater, just small towns.
there were no Democrats running for Governor in Louisiana. Jindal’s “Democratic” opponent, State Senator Walter Boasso, switched parties when the Louisiana Republican party establishment coalessed around Jindal and snubbed him.
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Additionally, the other “Democrat” in that race, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, was crazy, advocating repealing every tax in Louisiana, save the one on the oil companies. He had no other ideas, spoke of nothing else on the trail and in debate, and was naturally not treated as a serious candidate as a reseult.
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So, to say the Republicans won a “victory” in the Louisiana Governor’s election is a little tough, since we didn’t have a candidate. No disputing they took the seat, though.
“Republican Greg Ballard pulled off what he and many others are calling “the biggest upset in Indiana political history” Tuesday, defeating two-term Democratic Mayor Bart Peterson”.
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Peterson is a good guy, but wonder if the city went into massive depression after blowing a ten point lead to a certain team from this region ….
The links you give tell a very interesting story of the Ohio Republican Party trying very hard to keep the Mayor’s seat in Canton. They pulled people out of Columbus, for example, Ohio’s biggest city. No GOPers watching the polls there. They pulled people from across the state. They were all in Canton.
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And they lost.
Besides picking up a remarkable 4 state senate seats in ultra-red MS, an African-American Democrat won election in a majority white (92% white!) district for the first time in state history. Given the pitiful record of most Deep Southern (and many Northern) states of election persons of color to majority white districts, this is a breakthrough.
have you got a link? Good to know that Haley Barbour isn’t the only story coming out of MS.
His name is Eric Powell. http://www.ericpowellforsenate.com