Why Election Day was a Bad Day for the GOP

Virginia:

While the Republicans are celebrating winning the governor’s mansion in Virginia, this shouldn’t have been a big surprise. Deeds wasn’t exactly a good candidate, and his attempts to plaster McDonnell over his decades’ old thesis paper regarding women in the workplace failed as dismally as GOP attempts to slam Obama over his wife’s decades’ old thesis paper. Deeds never hit a stride, couldn’t find a voice, and lost because he sucked as a candidate. A win is a win, but this one really isn’t a reflection of the national mood. It’s a reflection of what happens when you have a poor candidate.

New Jersey:

Republican Christie beat Corzine by just over 4 pts, a stunningly low number considering Corzine’s low approval rating. Christie’s victory was less about voters embracing Republican ideals than about selecting between “the devil we know” and “the devil we don’t.” The incumbent governor with an approval rating in the mid-thirties still got almost 45% of the vote. That means a lot of people who did not approve of Corzine still voted for him instead of the Republican candidate.

More telling is looking at the local results in NJ. In both cases, incumbents of both parties more often than not held on to their seats, and in the few changes, Democrats more often than not came out on top.

So what does this mean? At a time when the country is still suffering the lingering impact of a brutal recession, when New Jersey suffers the highest property taxes in the country and one of the highest cost of livings, the GOP barely managed to take New Jersey and still managed not to give the new GOP governor enough allies in the state assembly to push their agenda.  In short, the core base of power is still firmly democratic.

Now as a New Jersey resident, this is going to be annoying.  Because unless Christie can figure out how to work with the state Democrats (and the GOP's generally policy has been NOT to work with anyone), then the status quo will remain in place until the next election...at which time HE will be out on his ass.

And as we have seen, voters have short attention spans and shorter memories. Just like everyone is calling Obama a failure after less than a year in office, if Christie (and McDonnell in Virginia) can't figure out how to work with Democrats and accomplish anything, they will be called failures.  Because while deflection, disorder, and voting "no" to everything might work when you are not the party in power, Christie and McDonnell won't be able to deflect blame for failure.

New York:

For over a century, New York’s North County has been a cemented Republican congressional seat. That all changed when Democrat Bill Owens defeated Tea party darling and GOP headache Doug Hoffman. The radical conservative portion of the GOP practically lynched moderate Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava, forcing her out of the race for not being conservative enough.

If anything is telling of what is to come in 2010, it is the New York race. Owens was able to take full advantage of the GOP civil war and provided the blueprint for other congressional Democrats to follow. Let the GOP implode and focus on the issues.

The Conservative Movement, lead by people such as Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and other loud mouths, has demonstated how far removed from reality it is. It successfully alienated independents and moderate Republicans in a long-time “guaranteed” Republican seat and drove them toward the Democratic candidate. And the “movement” has threatened to run more third party candidates against other successful moderate Republicans that don’t bend to their agenda, forcing the GOP to spend time and resources defending itself against its own base while trying to secure the Independents and moderates it will need to reclaim seats from Democrats.

If the NY race shows anything, it is that Obama is not relevent in these races. Now of course for Democratics that means they can't depend on Obama to help them keep their seats.  But they don't NEED to, as Owens proved.  The GOP allowed a vocal, far-right portion of its base to get completely out of control without considering the fact that these people, once wound up, would turn on them.  The Conservative Movement is threatening a dozen moderate Republicans in essential races next year.  All the Democrats need to do is keep their noses clean, downplay the drama, and let the GOP self-combust.

It worked in New York.