November 3, 2009, will likely be remembered as a pivotal date political history. Last week's sweeping victories for the Republican Party in Virginia and New Jersey have caught the attention of the entire nation. But now the question is: What's next?
For many, last Tuesday was seen as a referendum to President Obama. A warning shot, if you will, that if things do not get better (and soon) that independents will begin to lean back to the Republican Party. If you remember, prior to George W. Bush, people's overall view toward the GOP over the past 30 years has been pretty positive.
For others, it was simply a day where local elections were decided primarily on local issues. I tend to fall somewhere in between.
For New Jersey:
I believe that a lot of this race was decided on the corruption of the Democrat incumbent, Corzine. However, New Jersey is solidly a Democrat state. Barack Obama easily carried the state in 2008, so a GOP victory here was not a given.
For Virginia:
I think VA is the key in all this. Over the past 6 to 8 years, there was a growing consensus that VA was becoming a purple, if not blue, state. Election victories for Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Jim Webb, Barack Obama and then Warner again, had many believing that rapid growth in population for Northern VA had drastically reshaped the political landscape in the Commonwealth. But perhaps not.
McDonnell has really been the first candidate in this time frame that could appeal to a wide group of people. I always like to say about Bob that you can dress him up or dress him down, and he would fit in perfectly either way. He's "down-home" enough to appeal to voters in the southern part of the state, but shrewd and crafty enough to blend in with fast-paced crowd in the Northern reaches of the state. Also, Bob had a message and HE STAYED ON IT. Even when Dems tried to dredge up a 20 year old thesis and use it as the basis of their campaign, McDonnell never wavered.
From the very beginning, McDonnell said this campaign was going to be about jobs and the economy, and it was...all the way to the end. "Bob's for Jobs" was a slogan that probably everybody that voted Tuesday had heard at least once. But McDonnell did something that's always a given in campaigns: he followed up his slogans with actual detailed plans. Agree with them or not, they were there.
Not only did McDonnell win in the state that Barack Obama carried in 2008, but he won it in a landslide. Adding to the significance of VA, is the fact that ALL 3 candidates on the GOP ticket won by double digits. All 3 top positions in VA being held by the same party is rare. In fact, it's only the 2nd time it's happened.
Local elections? Perhaps. But it didn't seem very local to the White House. President Obama and Vice President Biden both made multiple trips to VA and NJ over the past couple of months and as recently as this past week. Obviously they recognized the significance of these races.
Certainly, the outcome of these races does not directly effect the lives of those in other states, but it definitely has entered their psyche. Republicans and Conservatives have hope again. They're rejuvenated. Democrats are a little more frightened today than they were 6 months ago. The tides may be turning back to a sea of red.
I wrote a piece several months ago comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter. That observation may be more true than I realized. Not only do their policies nearly mirror one another, their political fates may as well. Carter was elected in 1976 in the wake of Republican corruption and distrust among the American people (Nixon, Watergate, etc) Carter was seen as an outsider and something different. But after Carter was elected, it became crystal clear that he was not ready for the burden of the Presidency and could not accomplish was he wanted to do. He was seen as "weak" on foreign policy (Iran hostage crisis) and misinformed on domestic issues (oil shortage). During that time a storm began to brew and that storm found a face and name: Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the epitome of what people were looking for at the time: the anti-Carter. Carter seemed unsure and frail; Reagan was confident and strong. Carter wavered on policy with the Soviet Union; Reagan wanted to confront them head on. When the election came in 1980, it wasn't even close. Reagan won in a landslide and I don't mean a landslide in MSNBC's definition of Obama's 2008 victory. I mean a REAL landslide.
What followed would be known as the Reagan Revolution that carried on, for the most part, over the next 15-20 years. Is Obama another Carter? Was his election an anomaly? Will his election actually HELP Republicans? Maybe. And if so, people will look back 30 years from now, and say that November 3,2009 was the day that it started and Bob McDonnell was the man to do it.
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