Wow...it's been awhile. This is what happens to a blog when you have only one writer and he happens to be immersed in graduate studies. Be that as it may, I've decided to take a break from my term paper to finally give an analysis of the 2009 elections.
First, let me say that I don't agree with many of my fellow conservatives that elections of this year were a referendum on President Obama. At the end of the day, the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey were won or lost based upon attitudes and sentiments geared toward local concerns. As the cliché goes, all politics is local.
That being said, however, I can't remember the last time a Virginia gubernatorial candidate of either major party won by such a huge margin. The same is true for the other statewide offices of Lt. Governor and Attorney General, respectively. I think it's fair to say that...
1. Conservatives in Virginia were especially energized. There is a grain of truth to the claims that reaction to President Obama's policies may have driven at least some of the turnout. I don't think this was the deciding factor, but it's definitely there.
2. The Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Creigh Deeds, was a particularly weak candidate whose campaign went through a slow-motion collapse. Seriously, who was running this guy's campaign? Deeds had no consistent message and he kept going off on tangents by bringing up divisive social issues.
Like it or not, most people aren't going to the polls on Election Day because they care about a candidate's stand on abortion. This is especially true when you have an economy like ours. The social issues, whatever they are, take a back seat during recessions. That's just the way it is. The average person is not going to care about same-sex "marriage" one way or another if he's out of a job.
The Deeds campaign apparently thought that Obama's win in Virginia last year somehow meant that the Commonwealth had turned into a hard-Left state. They kept running ads in Northern Virginia painting Republican candidate Bob McDonnell as a right-wing extremist who would "turn back the clock" on all sorts of social issues. One particular ad emphasized the point that McDonnell had introduced 35 bills into the General Assembly "restricting a woman's right to choose."
This backfired in a really bad way. Yes, it's true that Northern Virginia is more liberal than the rest of the Commonwealth (thanks to the influx of carpetbaggers), but it's not a completely blue region. When you go outside of Arlington County, you'll notice that Northern Virginia is much more diverse politically. That's why you'll see a state senator as conservative as Ken Cuccinelli get elected and re-elected in this region.
Deeds foolishly brought up divisive social issues when he should have talked more about job growth, transportation, government spending, and so forth. He shot himself in the foot by wasting his political capital on issues irrelevant in the eyes of most voters.
4. It must be said that McDonnell ran a pretty good campaign. Despite the implosion of the Deeds campaign, it was still necessary for McDonnell to have a good strategy. He didn't make very many mistakes along the way and had a consistent message throughout the campaign. McDonnell correctly judged the mood of the voters and spoke to them on the issues which they found relevant.
That being said, the reason I couldn't vote for McDonnell in good conscience is because of the controversy regarding his masters thesis from Regent University. I really didn't have a problem with what he wrote in his thesis and I thought he should have stuck to his guns as a conservative. But being the Republican he is, McDonnell quickly recanted those positions and moved toward the Left. That told me that McDonnell would say whatever it took to win, thus he couldn't be trusted with my vote. His credibility took a major hit when he did that, but I digress.
Despite the flap over the masters thesis, McDonnell was still far more consistent in what he articulated than Deeds. At the end of the day, I think that's what made the difference. This was especially the case when Deeds couldn't figure out which stance he wanted to take regarding tax increases. Kudos to the McDonnell campaign for doing what any good campaign was supposed to do.
5. As a lot of pundits have pointed out, Virginia has a consistent trend of electing governors from the political party opposite that of the current presidential administration. Democrat Barack Obama is President, ergo Virginians elected Republican Bob McDonnell as governor. This contrarian spirit exhibited by most Virginians appears to be alive and well, 2009 being no exception.
6. The Democrats in Virginia were counting on the same level of liberal turnout that they enjoyed in the 2008 election. Obama campaigned for Deeds in order to help draw out the liberal base, but alas it didn't work. I had to chuckle when I heard Rep. Jim Moran say that Deeds lost because he didn't align himself closely enough with Obama. Good grief that man is delusional.
Now regarding New Jersey, I simply won't comment on that race just because I don't know anything about New Jersey politics. As I said before, I think these races are largely local in their character. However, I will briefly comment about the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District.
After Democrat Bill Owens was presumed the winner in that race, the Left rejoiced and saw this as some type of national victory. Indeed, many liberal commentators spoke as though the NY-23 race was some type of referendum on their socialist agenda. This his hilarious and silly when you consider the following...
1. Bill Owens didn't even win a majority of the vote. In a three-way race, he won a plurality of the votes. Had there been a run-off after Election Day between Owens and Doug Hoffman, there's a good chance Hoffman would have won.
2. Owens barely won a special election against a no-name candidate running on a third-party ticket who didn't even live in the district. And the Democrats are patting themselves on the back because of this?
3. Throughout much of the campaign, Hoffman was running against both the Democratic candidate as well as the entire Republican establishment who backed his other opponent on the ballot, the liberal Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava. Hoffman did extremely well for having gone up against such odds.
One particular part of the 2009 elections really surprised me and that was the ballot measure in Maine to overturn the legalization of same-sex "marriage." I thought for sure that a New England state would have voted the other way, but I was happy to be wrong about this. It seems that a majority of the people in Maine still think that marriage should be marriage and not be perverted into something else entirely.
To be sure, I'm vehemently opposed to using referenda as a means to govern. I hate democracy and I favor a republican form of government. It's appropriate to use ballot measures for ratifying amendments to a state constitution, but not for general legislation. I would argue that the use of referenda for general legislative acts is unconstitutional. Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution guarantees a republican form of government to each state.
Homosexual organizations were hoping that a defeat of the ballot measure in Maine could be used as momentum to push for more radical legislation in Congress. So much for that! The homosexual movement is already angry because Obama and the Democrats in Congress haven't focused on their agenda. With this result in Maine, I don't expect the mood in D.C. to change very much at all.
Looking back with hindsight, I don't think the 2009 elections were indicative of any massive change--at least not on the national scale. If anything, the wide margin of victory for the Republicans in Virginia simply confirms that we're still very much a divided nation. It was definitely a fluke that Obama won states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana in 2008. Depressed conservative turnout coupled with an unusual increase in turnout among traditional liberal constituencies (e.g. ethnic minorities, youth) resulted in Obama's victory in these states.
The 2009 elections saw the exact opposite happen. Conservatives turned out in larger numbers and many of the flash-in-the-pan voters who backed Obama didn't show up this time around. It may be too early to tell, but suffice to say that Obama probably won't win the aforementioned states in 2012. Even if Obama does win re-election, the margin of victory will be a lot smaller. Many factors will be in play, but I honestly don't see any less polarization.
