The big news from Tuesday this week came with the announcements of gubernatorial wins for the Republican Party in both Virginia and New Jersey. While both of these states voted for President Obama last year, and are represented by Democratic senators in Washington, the former has traditionally leaned Republican in presidential contests, only going Democratic three times since the end of World War II. Independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also stood as the Republican nominee in his contest, won a third term to the office he presently holds.
While Tuesday was generally a good night to be a Republican in the United States, things were not perfect. After an unnecessarily public fight within the party over the twenty-third congressional district in New York, the Democratic nominee emerged victorious in a race for a seat long held by Republicans. Fortunately, Owens is regarded as being a conservative Democrat, and may well have been the best candidate in that race for the special election. Republicans now have an opportunity to select a good candidate to face Owens for election to a full term in 2010, particularly now with the revelation that Owens now supports John Dingell’s bill.
Despite the narrow Democratic victory in the New York congressional special election, and a dismissive attitude on the part of the White House, congressional leaders are worried that their majority may be doing too much too fast in Congress. Fortunately, this means that the majority party in Congress may slow down its great, costly leap forward. Indications are that Democrats will give their health care reform proposals another look despite the unveiling of yet another statist, inherently contradictory plan this week by Speaker Pelosi.
For Republicans, however, Tuesday meant that bread and butter issues do still matter, and Republicans can make convincing arguments on such topics. McDonnell and Christie were right to run issues-driven campaigns focused on the concerns of their electorates. While Aaron Marks is right in his analysis of claims regarding the youth vote in the elections this year, the performance of both McDonnell and Christie suggests that discontent with Washington transcends party lines.
Thus, in moving forward, Republicans must remember to run credible candidates focusing on issues actually of relevance to their electorate. However, the defeat in New York 23 demonstrates another important point. The GOP is and must continue to be a big tent party. The results of Tuesday’s elections suggest that this remains the case. However, within that tent, the candidates nominated must be plausible choices for their electorates.
Ultimately, Tuesday’s may have been the best of outcomes for the Republican Party in the elections this year. Virginia and New Jersey demonstrated that the party has a future, while the people of far northern New York offered a sobering reminder of the importance of cohesion for a party. The GOP is and must continue to be a movement of many perspectives, but these perspectives should share some similarity with one another. Nominating a candidate who is only with her party on gun rights in a reliably Republican district is not the way to foster continued support from traditional supporters of the party while also currying favor with those more independently minded. Success in 2010 and beyond is possible if past mistakes are not repeated.
Last 5 posts by James Kane
- Scott Brown, Barack Obama, and the Politics of Change - January 27th, 2010
- The Massachusetts Senate Race Offers a Guide to Competing in November - January 10th, 2010
- The Massachusetts Special Election Could Define the 2010 Cycle. - January 8th, 2010
- Things learned in the debate over health care reform - December 28th, 2009
- The Only Choice for Person of the Year - December 15th, 2009
Gee whiz and golly! Shouldn’t we appealing to John McCain and Bob Dole to be our party leaders? After all, they are moderate, centrists, middle-road pragmatic appeasers who will compromise with Obama and make the media happier with Republicans. We must avoid one of those 19th century Democrats who followed Jefferson as that could anger the 20th century Democrats who follow Rousseau and Marx (see THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon and claysamerica.com). And, we must be careful not to allow the likes of Sarah Palin to stir up the individual freedom, free market, American prosperity and exceptionalism crowd, and piss off the media so they won’t speak well about us.
Perhaps I was not clear. There is a place for conservatives in the GOP. That is part of a big tent movement. It’s hard to have a “big tent” if one’s leaders are all of the same persuasion and footing ideologically. Nonetheles, what should bother you is not the selection of McCain and Dole as the GOP nominees in 2008 and 1996 respectively, but rather the eery similarities one or both shared with George W. Bush whom it may be safe to assume you voted for twice.
In every political campaign, style is as important as, if not more so than, substance. It is for this reason that George W. Bush succeeded where John McCain failed. Indeed, if one looks back to the issues McCain emphasized in 2000, one sees much of the George W. Bush agenda. What hurt McCain in 2008 more than his centrism was, yes, his public perception as a media darling, but also the unfortunately valid moniker given to him by liberals, John McSame. In no way of substance was McCain ideologically different from George W. Bush. Where McCain went wrong was in assuming that the media would stand by him, which was something even he should have figured could not be counted on after the controversies of the second Bush term.
Thus, with Sarah Palin can be seen a similar phenomenon. She certainly is a politician with a certain style, but it is a style necessitating stronger policy credentials than have been demonstrated by the former governor thus far. It’s hard to be a populist of the right when one is A. without a platform, and B. also trying (and failing) to claim victimhood as a defense from “meanspirited” critics at every turn.