Friday, November 20, 2009
In a column last week (“Republicans gain momentum with recent wins”), Chet Compton hailed the recent election of Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia as a prelude to a sweeping victory for his party in next year’s midterm elections. He would like to believe that the young, well-spoken president’s victory was a fluke, an aberration, the result of misplaced hope that is quickly fading. The story he tells is a familiar one. If only it were 1993.
While reading Compton’s column, I was reminded of something Sen. Pat Moynihan (D-New York) once said: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” In this case, the facts don’t seem to support the proposition that Republican gubernatorial victories signal any substantial shift in the voters’ view of the Obama administration. Nor do they represent any kind of dramatic realignment like we saw in 1994. The results do tell us a lot about the issues voters care about in Virginia and New Jersey: the economy and taxes.
Using off-year elections to make this kind of prediction is much like auguring the future fortunes of the polity by studying the flight of birds. (The Romans actually did this, and elections could be rendered invalid by inaugural error.) It may mean a lot for the birds, but not much for 2010.
For those of you who haven’t kept up on recent political hostilities, I’ll reprise the latest election results. In Virginia’s gubernatorial election, Republican Bob McDonald defeated Democrat Cree Deeds, and in New Jersey, incumbent governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat, was unseated by Republican Chris Christie.
When voters in Virginia and New Jersey were asked if they were voting to express their opinion about President Barack Obama, clear majorities in both states said it was not part of the decision, according to exit polls reported by ABC. Among those who did say that was an important factor, the majority claimed that they supported the president. These races were decided upon local issues, and in both cases, the Republicans had the better candidate and ran the better campaign.
In Virginia, Cree Deeds’ bid for the governorship seemed to solely consist of attacking Republican Bob McDonald as a right-wing ideologue based upon a thesis he wrote two decades ago in graduate school. Contrary to Deeds’ negative, one-dimensional campaign, McDonald emphasized a positive message based upon improving infrastructure and the economy.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Governor Corzine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, was extraordinarily unpopular going into the race. The only way he stood any chance at all of re-election was by running an especially negative campaign, which, among other things, featured an ad hinting that his overweight opponent “threw his weight around” to get special favors. Christie, a former federal prosecutor, ran an effective campaign highlighting the state’s property tax rate — the highest in the nation — and its poor economy.
In the last five gubernatorial elections, New Jersey and Virginia have always voted for the same party, and always for the party that is not in control of the White House. In 1997, the last time Republicans won the governorships in those two states, the Democrats picked up five House of Representative seats the following year.
Many conservative pundits, including Compton, have divined a connection between these races and an impending realignment in national politics, but I think the facts speak for themselves. This election was anything but extraordinary.
— Thompson is a Topeka senior in economics.
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