Posted on 11/08/2009 5:04:24 PM PST by RobinMasters
The winner’s aura around Barack Obama dissipated a bit this week when his party lost the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. It is tempting to see these elections, which always come in tandem a year after the presidential one, as a “referendum” on a new administration’s policies. They were in 1993, when Democratic losses showed the limits of Bill Clinton’s popularity and pointed to landslide Republican victories the following year. It is hard to assess whether voters were sending Mr Obama “a message” on healthcare or Afghanistan or something else. But it is not hard to assess the health of a political movement. The hopes with which Democrats entered the Age of Obama have been damped.
It is increasingly questionable whether there is any such thing as an Age of Obama. The president’s constituency is personal, not partisan. His charisma turns out to be non-transferable. On Tuesday the bloc of new voters who turned out in droves to support him in 2008 – largely young people and minorities – were nowhere to be seen. Not even Mr Obama himself can summon them to vote for others. He visited New Jersey three times in the campaign’s closing weeks to stump for Jon Corzine, the unpopular Democratic governor, describing him as “one of the best partners I have in the White House”. But to no avail. Only 9 per cent of those who voted were under 30. Mr Corzine won them handily. But in Virginia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds did not. There, the youth vote was also anaemic – and Republican candidate Bob McDonnell won it by 10 points.
The energy of young people and minorities was the main grounds for arguing that Mr Obama’s election signalled a realignment. If Democratic candidates cannot take this vote for granted, they must win it with promises. On what? Gay marriage? (It has been repudiated 31 of the 31 times it has been placed on state referendums, as in Maine this week.) More open immigration? Ethnically targeted benefits? In a time of limited resources these are all recipes for alienating independent voters.
Which points to the Democrats’ second problem: more and more voters are independent. A poll on the eve of the election by Ipsos found that 34 per cent of Americans consider themselves Democrats, 22 per cent Republicans and 44 per cent independent. If those independents split their votes as in 2008, Democrats could expect to triumph. But in New Jersey and Virginia, independents broke for the Republicans by two to one.
White House spokesmen have been quick to highlight a by-election they won in a historically Republican district in upstate New York. But that election was sui generis. The district itself has been reshaped so that it is now rather liberal – it went solidly for Mr Obama in 2008. Local Republican grandees handpicked a candidate, Dede Scozzafava, who was arguably to the left not just of the party’s activists but of the district’s voters. Most Republicans threw their vote behind a third-party candidate – Douglas Hoffman of the Conservatives. Ms Scozzafava dropped out of the race in the closing week and, at the urging of the White House, endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens, who beat Mr Hoffman by a hair. Since Mr Owens disavows any plans of tacking rightward, he may not hold the seat for long.
That gets to the heart of the Democrats’ difficulty. Congressional Democrats are highly unpopular. Their approval rating has fallen to the abyssal depths in which congressional Republicans dwell, and, according to a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports, even below it, with 46 per cent of Americans saying they will vote Republican next election and 42 per cent preferring a Democrat.
The problem looks fixable: congressional Democrats must wrap themselves in the mantle of Mr Obama’s programme. But what is that? The fiscal part of his stimulus plan consisted only of the Democratic majority’s long-standing spending plans. His health plan was generated by party activists. Rather than rallying Democrats behind a new ideology, as Ronald Reagan did for Republicans, he is taking cues from partisans who were dug in before he arrived. He is following those unpopular congressmen, not leading them. “Change” is the last thing his presidency is about.
The president is not haemorrhaging popularity. But he is losing the support of the centre of the electorate with astonishing steadiness. Look at the composite poll figures on the website Pollster.com. From its peak last December at just under 70 per cent, Mr Obama’s approval rating has fallen by about 2 points a month, along a line you could almost trace with a ruler. Rasmussen, whose polls proved extremely accurate on Tuesday, has found that fewer Americans approve of the job Mr Obama is doing (46 per cent) than disapprove (52 per cent).
It is hard to see a way out of this. Democratic strategists say the president needs to be more energetic in pursuing his agenda – particularly his healthcare plan. But “special interests” are no longer the big obstacle here, if ever they were. The obstacle is that the public now disapproves of it. Eugene Robinson, the Washington Post columnist, wrote in defence of the president: “What many progressives (including me) sometimes see as Obama’s temporising on issues ... might be sensible politics.” Mr Robinson mentioned public health funding and gays in the military. It is a wise insight. But it differs little from what Mr Obama’s harshest detractors say: that the president’s real political programme is something he dare not avow in public. If that is right, we can expect his support to erode further.
The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard
Ping.
>> The energy of young people and minorities was the main grounds for arguing that Mr Obama’s election signalled a realignment.
The thing is, the overworked unicorn couldn’t crap enough skittles to fill yutes’ and minorities’ trick-or-treat bags right away. And now their pandemic ADHD kicked in and the poor dears are jaded.
It’s Bush’s fault.
Young people (the majority of them) vote for the cult of personality, not a thoughtful pricipled reasoned out vote.
He is following those unpopular congressmen, not leading them. “Change” is the last thing his presidency is about.
What a joke! Hillary said the guy could not make a decision and always voted PRESENT, of course he cannot bring about change, he hasn’t an idea in his head.
If Health Care gets out of the Senate in any form, even a sensible Republican bill that restores health care to the market, it does not matter to the country what message the voters sent this month or how many seats change parties next year, The whole game will have changed fundamentally and irretrievably. I say even a good Republican bill because if a pure market bill is passed under the Healthcare label it will then go to Reconciliation and come back as more socialist than anything either House has voted on and then be whisked through the Senate on a simple majority vote. That is why the proposal of alternatives by Republicans must be rhetorical only.
Speaking of O., there is supposed to be a special about him on FOX News channel at 9PM Eastern. I hope it is not pre-empted.
It’s Bush’s fault.
Haven’t heard that in a long time!! /sarc...
It took a Carter to get a Reagan.
Well, darn! Hannity said on his radio show that there would be an O. show on FOX Sunday night 9PM Eastern. Instead, Greta with the Iran hostages instead! What happened?
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