Virginia shakes off Obama blue, returns to red roots
Pundits always use sports analogies for politics, we’re thinking of trying something different — a hair color analogy.
Virginia returned to its red roots tonight after an impetuous experiment last year with blue, the state’s political color of a generation ago.
OK maybe it doesn’t work as well. To put it more simply, the Republicans won the governor’s race in Virginia. That was in contrast to last year when Barack Obama captured the state which voted Democrat in a presidential election for the first time since 1964.
After Virginia was called, Republicans could not hide their glee, joy, smiley faces. And they were quick with reactions to Republican Bob McDonnell’s victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele issued a statement and repeatedly went on CNN including on the “Larry King Live” show. “It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president’s liberal agenda,” he said.
Then he boarded a plane for New Jersey. Hmmm is that a sign?
Democrats smiled and acted as if it were no big deal. Really. UNDERSTATED SHRUG. After all, they said, it’s the New Jersey governor’s race that means more because it’s a traditionally Democratic state. And that race hasn’t been called yet.
The First Draft: Elections East-West
Elections in the East, elections in the West.
Hot off the wire: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been declared re-elected.
Afghanistan’s election commission made the declaration after Karzai’s opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew and a run-off election was canceled. “The Independent Election Commission declares the esteemed Hamid Karzai as the president,” the commission’s chief said.
This will no doubt increase the pressure on President Barack Obama to roll-out his new Afghanistan strategy earlier rather than later, now that he knows who the United States will be dealing with.
Matthew Hoh, the former State Department employee who quit last month in protest over U.S. policy in Afghanistan, told NBC’s “Today” show that the Karzai news was “disappointing” and despite the investment of a lot of U.S. resources, “we didn’t get what we put our troops there for.”
Closer to home (just over the bridge from Washington) it’s the day before the election for Virginia governor and (up the highway a bit) the election for New Jersey governor.
Like it or not, Tuesday’s elections will be seen by some as a referendum on the policies of Obama, who has attended campaign events for the Democrats running in the two governor races.
I wonder if the “acorn effect”will take place in the NJ election? the local economy will miss the 10 dollar bills they throw around.If mickey mouse and donald duck are duck taped in a barn some were it could have a dramatic effect on the turn out!
“People on Capitol Hill, they watch the news”
President Barack Obama, on a campaigning blitz for fellow Democrats facing tough fights to stay in office, or get there, is trying to tie the state races to national issues to convince voters their ballot will have a broader impact.
“People on Capitol Hill, they watch the news,” he said.
On Wednesday, the president flew to New Jersey for a rally backing Governor Jon Corzine, who only just climbed into a tie with his Republican opponent, according to opinion polls.
Corzine is struggling in his bid for re-election Nov. 3, although New Jersey is a heavily Democratic state.
On Friday, Obama spent the afternoon at events for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who also faces a stiff fight for re-election next year and low opinion poll numbers, although he too runs a state that is thoroughly blue.
Obama was set to visit Connecticut, another strongly Democratic state, Friday evening to help raise money for Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. His popularity has been hit by voters’ perception that the five-term U.S. senator is too close to the finance industry largely blamed for the international economic slump. Dodd is up for re-election in 2010.
And next Tuesday, Obama will hold a rally for Creigh Deeds, a Virginia state senator trailing by double digits in that state’s governor’s race against its Republican attorney general, Robert McDonnell. Virginia and New Jersey are the only U.S. statehouses up for grabs on Nov. 3.
Obama’s support for Deeds will help put an end to McDonnell’s promise of a liquor store on every corner and a gun in every hand. Deeds is closing in on McDonnell because:
McDonnell supports privatization of Virginia’s liquor industry. As a result, he has received over a half million dollars from the alcohol beverage, hotel, and recreation industries with 5K alone from alcohol beverage distributors including K from Premium Distributors of Va LLC, from the Va Beer Wholesalers Assn, K from Silver Eagle Distributors LP, and K from Associated Distributors/The Charmer Sunbelt Group.
See http://www.vpap.org/committees/profile/m oney_in_industry2/1581?sector=3
McDonnell also supports a loophole in gun registration that has allowed terrible tragedies in Virginia, most notably at Virginia Tech. The NRA has spent well over a half million dollars on advertising in support of McDonnell’s support for the gun regulation loophole.
McDonnell’s promise of a liquor store on every corner and a gun in every hand is simply not a good idea.
The First Draft: Preparing for a fall?
Are Democrats trying to soften the blow for President Barack Obama if the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, Creigh Deeds, loses in the November elections?
The Washington Post thinks so. It says in a front page story that top Democrats sense that Deeds is likely to lose in the key swing state so they’re trying to distance Obama from him.
The article cites senior administration officials who are frustrated with the way Deeds has handled his campaign, saying he refused some strategic advice. They also say he did not reach out to some key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in the 2008 presidential race — the first time in decades that a Democrat won in that state.
A senior administration official said Deeds badly erred on several fronts, including not doing a better job of coordinating with the White House. “I understood in the beginning why there was some reluctance to run all around the state with Barack Obama,” said the official, who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about the race. “You don’t do that in Virginia. But when you consider the African American turnout that they need, and then when you consider as well they’ve got a huge problem with surge voters, younger voters, we were just a natural for them.”
So will this prep work help shield Obama from any fallout if the Democrat does not win the Virginia governorship?
For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama campaigns with Deeds)
The First Draft: The president keeps campaigning
Back from his overseas trip, President Barack Obama has spent this week as campaigner-in-chief.
Every day Obama has pushed lawmakers to approve an overhaul of the healthcare industry — the president’s top legislative priority.
And last night he made a quick trip up to New Jersey to do some political campaigning and inject some presidential charisma into Governor Jon Corzine’s struggling re-election campaign.
While Obama was stumping for Corzine, his vice president Joe Biden was on a similar mission — campaigning for the Democratic nominee for governor in Virginia, Creigh Deeds.
The Virginia and New Jersey governor elections in November are among the first major contests since Obama took office in January and could be seen as barometers of his success in achieving his agenda.
Obama is also pressing Congress to pass healthcare legislation before its August recess.
After meeting Obama at the White House on Thursday, moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe said she urged the president to be patient. She told him it was “overly ambitious” to set an August deadline for Senate passage of the massive healthcare overhaul.
another very unpopular democratic politician having to get obama to try and bail him out. his trip to nevada to try and rescue harry reed did not make a lot of difference. this is now a one man party as the popularity of the democratic congress sinks even lower,they have built this man up, now if it is all a ruse and he does not live up to the great expectations that people were lead to believe was a certainty ,then these are going to be interesting times politically,particularly if in two years we are bleeding taxes and unemployment is about 13%.
The First Draft: Showdown in Virginia
No major events are on the calendar today in the Federal City, but on the other side of the Potomac River there’s plenty to chew over.
Virginia Democrats on Tuesday night picked State Sen. Creigh Deeds, an unpolished moderate from the rural Shenandoah Valley, over better-funded rivals in the state’s gubernatorial primary.
This normally wouldn’t be big news, but the Virginia governor’s race is sure to get lots of national scrutiny as one of only two major electoral contests this year (along with the New Jersey governor’s race).
Virginia, long a bastion of conservative politics, has turned blue this decade. The state has elected two Democratic governors in a row, backed Obama in last year’s presidential race, and is now represented by two Democrats in the Senate.
Much of this shift has been driven by rapid population growth in the affluent Washington suburbs, where voters have more in common with liberal New Yorkers than conservative Southerners. Thus it’s interesting to note that Deeds, who hails from a sparsely populated, conservative area, defeated two better-funded, more liberal candidates who call Northern Virginia home — former Democratic party (and Clinton ally) Terry McAuliffe and state Delegate Brian Moran.
Deeds will face Republican Robert McDonnell in the November election. The two have faced off before: McDonnell beat Deeds by a mere 323 votes in the attorney general’s race four years ago.
The First Draft: Reading tea leaves in Virginia
The year after a presidential election, there’s typically few electoral contests on the calendar as politicians focus on getting some work done so they’ll have something to brag about to voters during the next election.
The few races that do occur tend to be heavily scrutinized as pundits look for something to chew over in the slow period before next year’s congressional midterms.
Today, Democrats in Virginia go to the polls to pick a candidate for the governor’s mansion, as incumbent Tim Kaine is constitutionally limited to one term. On the Republican side, Robert McDonnell faces no opposition for his party’s nomination.
Virginia, formerly solid red, is now a swing state that has elected successive Democratic governors and backed Democrat Barack Obama in last year’s presidential race.
All eyes are on Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who headed Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid last year.
McAuliffe has deep pockets and a high national profile and has emphasized economic issues. But he has not played a role in state politics before, and his ties to Clinton could actually be a detriment — Obama beat her in the state’s bruising February 2009 presidential primary.
The other two candidates are less known nationally but have deeper roots in the state.
Dear Barack,
Please continue to campaign for Democratic candidates in future elections. The Republicans welcome all your help.
Thank you.