I know everyone thinks I’m going to say last night was a referendum and Obama’s toast.  But, I’m not going to just toss that out there.  This is what I do think.

A lot of people talked about NY-23 like it meant something.  The entire race was fubar for all concerned.  You had a Democrat that wasn’t doing too well challenged by a Republican no Republicans liked.  Toss in a conservative running as a “Conservative”, and it got real muddled.  In fact, it got so screwed up that the Daily Kos got so confused he supported the Republican and Sarah Palin supported the independent.  In the end, the very not-Republican dropped out and endorsed the no-popular Democrat.  That had both party organizations teamed up against the independent.  Not too surprisingly, the Democrat won.  Main lesson learned, picking a candidate that does not reflect the party’s core values just never works out too good in the long rung.  In this case, it didn’t in the short run.  The Republicans have two years to figure out who would be a good candidate in that district.  If they do, the Republicans get it back.  If they don’t, it stays Blue Dog.

Virginia was fairly cut and dry.  The Democrats, fresh on the heels of delivering Virginia to the winning Democrat in the 2008 President’s race, had everything rolling.  So, they picked a candidate no one apparently liked.  How do you do that?  Virgina went 53% for Obama in 2008.  One year later, it went 58% for the Republican.  Once again, it’s easily argued the Democrats picked a candidate that did not reflect the party’s platform.  No matter how you cut it though, that was a 16% swing in one year.  That’s pretty astounding.  Sure, Deeds may not have been the best candidate of all time, but surely that feel-good feeling the 58% got from last year could have delivered more than 42% of the vote this year.  If you’re looking for an Obama mandate, my opinion so far is it certainly did not help this Democrat.  Hurt him?  Dunno.  But to lose 16% in one campaign doesn’t look very good to me.

New Jersey was more fun to watch.  In this case, New Jersey is about 33% Democrat, 46% non-declared, and 20% Republican.  In order to win as a Republican, you have to get about 2/3 of those non-declared voters.  Difficult, but doable.  And, the really odd thing about New Jersey is they are very predictable about doing it.  They will always vote Democrat for the President.  But, their candidate doesn’t always win.  When that Democrat does win as president, they immediately turn their back on the person they put in and vote the opposite way for governor.  There is one thing fairly unique about this election over the last few tho, see if you can figure it out:

It’s not so much they did the usual thing of electing a Democrat for president, then immediately ditching him once he’s in office, it’s how big the swing was.  The incumbent governor lost 1.2 million voters Obama had recruited for him.  That folks is a TON of votes.  Now, I’m a believer that all politics is local.  However, when a presidential candidate recruits X number of new voters, which Obama obviously did, to lose those voters in one year is pretty astounding.  Net result, New Jersey goes Republican.

Net result, in major contested races, Obama’s team went 0-2.  They ceded Virginia, but campaigned heavily in New Jersey.  Net result, losses of equal proportions.  The percentage was closer in New Jersey, but given it was an incumbent of the same party as the freshly elected Democrat president, Obama should have meant something there.  If he did, then Corzine must have been hugely unpopular.  Mathematically, it appears Obama had no impact whatsoever.  It could be argued Obama saved Corzine from an even more embarrassing defeat, but, that doesn’t mean squat in the final tally.  It could also be argued Obama cost Corzine the election.  I don’t really buy that.  People generally dismiss national influences on what they perceive as local issues.  The effect the national leaders should have is to get the base excited enough to get out and vote.  Obama obviously did not do that.  I don’t see that he hurt Corzine.  But, he most obviously did not help Corzine enough to win.

Two elections is not a referendum.  Virginia and New Jersey often elect Republican governors.  There is no trend for either state other than New Jersey’s odd obsession of voting against the president that gets elected.  The last thing the Republicans need to do is assume that whatever they did the last six months was the trick.  The trick here was the fact the Republicans, in the governor’s races, fielded much better candidates.  In the case of NY-23, they did not.  So, the Republicans can’t assume that people are so fed up with Obama that they’ll vote for whoever is in the opposite party.  It just doesn’t work that way.

Tradition dictates that the Republicans will pick up some seats next year.  People love to stick it to the President whenever they can.  They only way the Republicans will fubar that trend is to pick candidates that those people who are ready to stick it to the party in power can not support.  2010 will be a year the Republicans need to run as conservative, but not radical, candidates.  The mistake the Republicans made during the last “revolution” was they assumed all traditions were wiped clean because they were so superior of a party.  They learned real quick that wasn’t the case.  In 2010, they’ll need to stake their positions and take advantage of the anti-government mentality.  In 2012, Republicans will need to be more moderate to pick up those that can’t support conservative values.  If they had done that eight years ago, they’d still be in power.

That’s some speculation for sure.  The one proven point from last night is contrary to a lot of speculation from Keith Olbermann and the like, the Republican Party is alive and fully functional.

Tags: 2009 elections, 2010 Elections, 23rd, chris christie, christopher daggett, creigh deeds, daily-kos, jon corzine, kos, new jersey, new york, robert mcdonnell, sarah palin, virginia