Da Pendulum

So I prophesied five months ago, so it has come to pass:

The GOP trounced Democrats in two states that Barack Obama won big just one year ago. Obama beat McCain in Virginia by six points; Bob McDonnell won it by seventeen. Republicans swept the statewide offices, reversing Democratic gains made over the last few election cycles, and are set to take at least a half-dozen Democratic seats in the legislature. It should be remembered that the current governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, is also the Democratic Party chair, put there in part to consolidate Democratic gains in his state.

In New Jersey, the news is even worse. Chris Christie beat Jon Corzine by four points in a state that went for Obama by fifteen points — and where a Republican hadn’t won in over ten years. Unlike Virginia, Obama campaigned heavily for Corzine, calling him his “partner” and putting his prestige on the line. Joe Biden made a couple of campaign appearances, too, and the White House supervised the campaign in the final weeks after Corzine initially fell behind. Obama made the argument for Corzine all about Obama — and New Jersey, one of the bluest states in the nation, rejected him.

The lesson (if Dems were willing to learn it, which they won't be)? State elections certainly are influenced by local issues and the respective candidates' strengths and weaknesses. But the part of the field (to employ a football analogy) on which the campaign is waged is a function of the national political backdrop.

Four years ago Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds went head to head for the Virginia attorney-generalship against the backdrop of the Bush Administration's perceived failure in handling the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As no less an authority than Rahm Emanuel argued at the time, that made for a very Donk-friendly atmosphere in which the 2005 races in Virginia and New Jersey were waged. And, sure enough, the Democrat gubernatorial candidates - Tim Kaine and Jon Korzine, respectively - were both victorious, and the first McDonnell-Deeds matchup was a dead heat that McDonnell barely pulled out. Four years later, with Red Barry's left-wing extremism on which he never campaigned in 2008 having destroyed his credibility and popularity and provoked a huge backlash, the "goal posts" moved twenty-three and nineteen "yards," respectively, toward the Dem "end zone," shortening the field for the GOP and leaving Democrats little room for maneuver. It's difficult to see that landscape changing much over the next year other than to get even worse for the Dems.

As to NY23, it appears that the last minute endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens by the erstwhile "Republican" Dede "The Blob" Scozzafava, was enough to nudge him past conservative Doug Hoffman. Call it "Dede's revenge" if you like, and it'd be bitterly ironic if Owens ended up being the deciding vote in favor of BarryCare (You can take his vow to oppose it with a grain of salt the size of the Obama-Chrysler building), but with Blob out of the way, the decks will be clear to take that seat, along with dozens of others, back next November.

Here's Krauthammer on the risible myth of The One being "FDR v. 2.0"....