Tennessee House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner did an interview with The Tennessean and talked with the Associated Press and said what you might expect him to say in the wake of the District 62 loss:
"It's not like your dog getting run over, but it's a disappointment," Turner told reporters the day after the vote. Democrats had hoped that Cobb's name recognition and the endorsement by Tennessee Right to Life would give him the edge in the race.
"We had a popular guy, but they ended up having the most popular guy," said Turner, of Nashville. "This is not a fatal wound, it is merely a setback. We'll overcome it and we'll go forward."
Turner said low voter turnout in a special election complicated some of the grass roots efforts Democrats are working to implement. If the election had been held during a regularly scheduled general election, he said, "I'd like to think that the ground game we put together would have worked."
Mike Turner, of course, has to say those things because he is the House Democratic Caucus Chairman. He must make the Democrats' defeat sound as "acceptable" as possible, and he has a duty to at least pretend that all is well inside his party in the House. Turner's very tone of voice belies his concern, and an almost "oh crap" sense of dread at the prospect of next year's election. Mike Turner is in a safe seat, as is House Democratic Leader Gary Odom, but doubtless some Democrats in districts which might otherwise be prone to vote Republican will retire, while some constituencies previously seen as safe for Democrats won't seem like such a lock at this time next year. Mike Turner has an astute political mind, and he is very much aware of the realities the Democrats in Tennessee now face.
The greatest danger Republicans will likely encounter in the wake of such a major off-year victory is the specter of triumphalism. The GOP must not get into the trap that they are "destined" to achieve victory, and that they somehow don't have to work for it. That attitude will lead to electoral defeat (see British General Election of 1992, Sheffield Rally), and could ruin years of attempts to achieve the absolute majority which Republicans only seemingly achieved this past Tuesday night. If the mentality of over-exuberance doesn't control Republican leadership in the run-up to the General Election next year, the presumed majority must then guard against triumphalism if GOP numbers in both Houses of the General Assembly reach the kind of levels some seem to be predicting. For if the Republicans are indeed blessed with a secure majority in both Houses of the Tennessee General Assembly in 2010, voters will be much less likely to wait 140 years to punish arrogance and the sense of entitlement to power such as was experienced when the Democrats ran the show-especially in the House of Representatives.
Republicans have an opportunity to be the natural governing party in this State for very many years if they remember the basic axiom that when the polls say you are 20 points ahead, conduct yourself and run as though you are at least 10 points behind.
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