Yes, there were some heart breakers. I love Sharron Angle. I love Ruth McClung. I like Paladino and I like Fiorina and Raese. Noble people, one and all.
And yes, the Machine is alive and well in Massachusetts. But then again, Rhode Island and Maine will have non-Democratic governors. There are cracks in the Connecticut machine and Blue Hampshire is now flaming purple and changing colors faster than the leaves.
Let us now rejoice. Tuesday was big! And we are just getting started. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. I don't have all of the state house results but the GOP seemed to make strides almost everywhere. In New Hampshire the Senate went from 10-14 GOP to either 18-6 or 19-5. Hope and Change.
The question remains, why did the Dems do much better than in the Senate than everywhere else? First, of the three Senate "classes" the 2010 group was probably the least favorable going into the race. Two New York races, California, Hawaii, Vermont, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois and West Virginia are tough places for a Republican in any year. And Murray and Reid and Feingold had deep, deep pockets and a lot of special interests behind them. It's amazing the GOP won six seats without giving up a seat (Alaska has not been decided but it will not be won by a Democrat.) 2012 will be a more favorable year for GOP Senate hopefuls.
A second factor and perhaps the bigger factor to the Senate firewall is a subject that should be revisited over and over and over. Every election is now a referendum on the national media. The dinosaurs are still powerful but they are not ubiquitous. They can assist Coons and Reid and indeed they did. They tried oh so hard to elevate the compulsive liar named Conway but their magic fell short in the Bluegrass State. But they did try.
The national media spun the Senate races but they were not able to spin the gubernatorial (California and New York notwithstanding,) congressional and local elections. There just are not enough of them and even George Soros has to watch his pocketbook. But once more, media orthodoxy is the dinosaur in the room. We would be fools to not acknowledge its presence.
3 comments:
I guess we let ourselves get over-hyped. I've never seen an election where all of my people got elected but I guess that's what we expected. The chief reason we did better in the house is we won most races in competitive districts while in the Senate most the losses came in deep blue states. Delaware, Connecticut, West Virginia are probably as blue as we thought and even Marco Rubio would have had a hard time in one of those states. Looking toward 2012, the Democrats will have to defend 23 Seats, some of them in very red states ie Ben Nelson in Nebraska and Bill Nelson in Florida. Debbie Stabenow in Michigan which just elected a governor in a landslide, Kent Conrad in North Dakota, Jim Webb in what is now a very red Virginia. Bob Menendez will be juxtaposed Chris Christie in Jersey with Marco Rubio campaigning for his opponent. How about Sharrod Brown in John Kasich's Ohio? Is Herb Kohl safe in Wisconsin? Ask Russ Fiengold.
Between us we did predict the three big prizes, Oberstar, Skelton, and Spratt.
You did better on the prognosticating than I did. I thought I saw a blurb about Dingell going down in flames but ultimately, he held on. The Oberstar victory still amazes me. I am slightly torn about the Blue Dogs and the Democrats of seemingly good character (like Oberstar) biting the dust and leaving nothing but Bella Pelosi (thanks Jay Severin) Barney and Dennis. But that's politics and Oberstar voted with the monsters much too often.
We won big! It just doesn't feel like it. Now I read the Gop picked up 680 state legislators. (http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/11/devastation-gop.php)This may be the best outcome of the whole election.
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