Posted by
Bill Crawford on Saturday, October 31, 2009 5:30:44 PM
This year is the beginning of what pollsters call a "reaction cycle". It's what happens when a strong wind blows through the electoral playground, and the American voters, who as a group are not strongly attached to either end of the spectrum, show a little buyer's remorse and do a little janitorial work.
I first encountered this after Nixon swept everything in sight in 1972. The following year, the Watergate stories that were in the Washington Post wilderness during the presidental election were getting mainstream traction, and there were a few key elections that the Democrats did very well with. In 1974, Nixon resigned, and the Democrats elected their Watergate Congress.
In 1993, after Clinton brought back the Democrats running everything for the first time since before Reagan, the Republicans won some prominent elections- notably Giuliani as NYC Mayor at Christine Whitman as NJ Governor. Those races became a harbinger of the Contract With America and the Gingrich Congress. That one was made possible by a horrendous, ham handed exploration into universal health care by the White House.
Segue to 2009. A year after the Obama windstorm swept through here, both parties are concentrating on three off year elections: the Governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, and the 23rd CD in upstate New York, vacated by an Obama appointment. Virginia is a dead issue already, as evidenced by the White House's Clintonian recriminations ('You would win this if you just listened to me'). Corzine is in a dead heat with Christie in Jersey.
The NY Congressional race was highlighted by an internecine Republican squabble between the GOP nominee and the conservative who was entering because he thought her views on many things made her party affiliation a joke. Well, Dede Scozzafava has dropped out, and the Democrats have all but given up hope on picking off a Republican seat by splitting the opposition.
That's starting off with a two handicap, folks.
And now, Obama Care is coming off the press, filled with all the goodies the frustrated Dem base demanded, but pushed just under the surface to (hopefully) allow just enough deniability to collar the last few dozen votes that Pelosi and Reid need, but do not yet have.
The only chance the Dems have to hold Congress in 2010 will be for this to fail on the House floor. If it passes, and it is what I think it is after perusing the first 200 pages, all hell will break loose next year.
That's a hell of a Faustian bargain. I don't envy Obama, and the "hope and change" expectations he brought with his own mouth.