A blog post by Mike Lux mentioned this story by Bob Creamer at the HuffPo, where that "political consultant" tries to make a happy face about the Dem chances in the upcoming election. As I see it, it's simply whistling in a storm in a very dark and dangerous forest. It's not that Creamer doesn't produce some nice tunes, it's simply that it's not good enough in the deafening cacophony of alarms sounding at every corner!
Like that effing ole fool Deeds, Creamer simply argues that the rethugs are even worse. But this campaign strategy doesn't work, as we already know! If nothing changes, and soon, the election will be decided by right wing nutcases running to the polls and Dems and left leaning independents staying at home. And nothing that Creamer writes gives any hope that this won't happen.
This is the second part of two posts analyzing Virginia's 2009 gubernatorial election. The previous part can be found here.
When Democrats nominated State Senator Creigh Deeds, they nominated a rural, moderate Democrat designed to win the small towns and rural regions of western Virginia. In an ideal situation, Mr. Deeds would have carved out a coalition similar to former Governor Mark Warner's.
In 2001, Mr. Warner won a 5.13% victory over Attorney General Mark Earley, based largely upon rural support in western Virginia.
Mr. Warner is famous among Democrats for this achievement (remember, this was just two months after 9/11). He went on to become a successful and very popular governor; in 2008, Mr. Warner ran for Senate and won double his opponent's vote. Since Mr. Warner, no other Democratic candidate has ever built a coalition similar to his.
This is the first part of two posts analyzing Virginia's 2009 gubernatorial election. The second part can be found here.
A normal observer might see the above map and naturally conclude that the Democratic candidate lost a landslide election. This is not always the case. In the 1968 presidential election, for instance, the state of New York looked like this:
Although it does not look like it, Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey won the state: 49.76% to 44.30%.
Rather than being an overwhelming sweep, most elections are a mix of good and bad news for each political party and the progressive and conservative movements in our country, and the 2009 off year elections certainly fits into that category.
In the category of the expected, both parties had easy wins: Bob McDonnell won the VA Governor's race in a blowout, while progressive Democrat John Garamendi easily won the Congressional special election to replace Blue Dog Ellen Tauscher.
In the more competitive races, the Republicans won the NJ Gov race, and the Republicans/conservative movement lost the special Congressional election in NY 23rd.
And in the saddest news of the day for progressives, the Maine ballot initiative to strip marriage rights from gays and lesbians narrowly won, although progressives won some other initiative battles like the fight against the highly regressive TABOR initiative in ME.
Republicans, conservative Democrats, and corporate lobbyists are all eagerly lining up to spin the losses in the two Governors' races as evidence that Democrats should become more cautious, go slower with change, pull back on their ambitions. That is the worst possible thing Democrats could do right now. It's a little like conservatives saying that the problem in NY-23 was that Republicans just weren't conservative enough, which you know they will be somehow trying to spin.
Let me try to explain this to the caution captains in my party. There are two reasons we lost those Governors' races yesterday, and they are closely related: voters are in a foul mood, and base Democrats- young folks, unmarried women, minorities- didn't come out.
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