“OK, we’ve intimidated the moderates in the Republican
Party, and that hasn’t worked out very well, so let’s try to put the squeeze on
the moderate Democrats!” Can they be serious?
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and other Republican operatives
actually believe that they can pressure Democrats to join their “Party of No”
and stop progress on healthcare, education, climate change, you name it.
The GOP’s sweep of gubernatorial elections in Virginia and
New Jersey yesterday sent clear signs of fermenting discontent with the Obama
administration.
In New Jersey, the Republicans recaptured a seat that has
been Democratic for over a decade. The GOP sweep of statewide races in Virginia
represented a sharp departure from a year ago when the state voted for a
Democratic president for the first time since 1964.
The Hill's A.B.
Stoddard and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis consider what the future will
hold for the Democratic agenda on Capitol Hill and in the White House after the
2009 elections if the majority party starts slipping in numbers.
Are Republicans drinking the Kool-Aid again? In the late
1970s they did their best to purge their party of the Ed Brookes, Jacob Javits,
Clifford Cases, Chuck Percys. Strange how some of those hard-right heirs stood
around to give Brooke the highest award the Senate bestows when an extreme
conservative of their ilk named Ari Nelson challenged him in his own primary
back in 1978. Stranger still that many of the moderates the party now wants to
exorcise were preceded by good and decent members who actually got things done
in government.
“Rockefeller Republican” became a swear word to the hard-line
faithful. Well, here we go again. But now even Newt Gingrich is worried — he
sees where this is headed.
Whatever happens tomorrow in the NY-23 race will be anticlimactic. Now that Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate, has dropped out, there has already been a clear and historic victory for the Conservative Party.
The Republican Party is now a third party in NY-23. The Conservative Party of New York was formed in 1962, but is the focus now of national interest. And it cannot be denied that Sarah Palin was the first major national political figure to cross the river to NY-23. The new energy heading to NY-23 is formed out of the Tea Party and Town Hall movements. We can possibly see now the fledgling beginning of a third major party in America, the Conservative Party.
With just days to the 2009 election, we can prepare for ourselves an avalanche of media reports, blog posts, tweets, e-mails (OK, you get the idea) of what the results in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races mean for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.
Truth to be told, it won’t mean much no matter what happens. Why, you say? First, with about a year to the 2010 midterm elections and three years to the presidential elections, the results of what happens in Virginia (McDonnell will win, unfortunately), and New Jersey (Corzine will win, fortunately) will be long forgotten. Second, as much as people want to make state races in an off-year about the incumbent president’s popularity or lack thereof, they really come down to state issues (not national ones), and how candidates and campaigns ran against each other. That being said, nothing will stop the avalanche of stories and comments by the political intelligentsia, who will try to extract national meaning from two state races that at best can be described as traditionally blue (New Jersey) and purple (Virginia).
House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) recently summed up his sanguine attitude when he wrote, "Republicans lost our way on fiscal responsibility when we held the majority in Congress. Since then, we have held firm to our commitment to show the American people we learned our lesson by offering better solutions to hold the line on spending, rein in red ink and get the nation's fiscal house in order."
Minnesota Gov. Tim
Pawlenty (R), a 2012 presidential prospect, has stepped into the fray and
endorsed the third-party candidate in NY-23, leaving former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich (R-Ga.) all by his lonesome in the GOP establishment.
Doug Hoffman,
who is running against Democrat Bill Owens and liberal Republican Dede
Scozzafava, has now earned the endorsements of Pawlenty, former Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin, former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and former House Majority
Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). Scozzafava, a State Assemblywoman, supports
abortion rights, card-check for unions and same-sex marriage.
Read more...
After discussing healthcare longer than it took the Founding Fathers to form the republic, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this week sanctioned an idea that could likewise have historic consequences: optional federal legislation, a provision with details yet undisclosed that allows the states to opt out of the public plan.
Cited on a variety of Internet shops like The AtlanticWire, Newser and Lara Ebke’s Red State Eclectic yesterday was a quote from Matt Lewis, writer, blogger and commentator from Alexandria, Va. He writes in Politics Daily: “If recent elections are any guide, the Republicans' heads will tell them to choose Mitt Romney. Their hearts whisper something else. Is ‘Sarah’ the name of this siren song?”
W. McCahill at Newser says: “No matter what kind of gains Republicans make in the midterm elections next year, it’s going to be tough to unseat President Obama — and that’s why the GOP is going to choose Sarah Palin, its heart’s preferred candidate, over Mitt Romney, its head’s favorite.”
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