Posted on 11/04/2009 9:01:23 AM PST by Graybeard58
Even before Tuesday's election results were known, liberal pundits were dismissing them as unimportant. Tuesday was another meaningless off-year election, they insisted, not a referendum on President Obama or his socialist agenda, notably Obamacare.
Forget that for months, they were optimistic the force of his will would carry Democrats to victory in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and a special congressional election in upstate New York. Forget that he stumped multiple times for Democrats Jon Corzine in New Jersey and Creigh Deeds in Virginia, or Vice President Biden implored voters in New York's 23rd House District on Sunday to send the Republicans a message by electing Democrat Bill Owens.
Except it was a referendum on Mr. Obama and Obamacare because he and his party made it one. He invested copious political capital in the gubernatorial races. Mr. Obama gave the entrenched Republican New York congressman a job to give the Democrats a chance to add to their House majority going into 2010. The plan was to restore the momentum Obamacare lost to the summer town halls.
Maybe Tuesday's Republican landslide in the president's backyard, the GOP victory in deep-blue Jersey and the impressive campaign run by a third-party conservative in liberal New York don't portend a repeat of 1993, when voters angry with a first-year Democratic president over his attempt to nationalize health care turned out Demo- cratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey. Despite that shot across their bow, congressional Democrats kept pressing Hillarycare in 1994, and voters swept them out of power that November.
In that context, consider Tuesday's other big news: Majority Leader Harry Reid stunned the nation by announcing Obamacare may not pass this year. Moderate and Blue Dog Democrats, already reluctant to support radical health-care reform before Tuesday's elections, don't want to suffer the same fate as the Democrats who didn't think the off-year election of 1993 was a referendum on Bill Clinton or Hillarycare.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Did the Big 0 really give Dede a job? Why isn’t this getting a lot more airtime? He BOUGHT that election.
He's talking about replacement of the congressman that forced this election. But yes, that most certainly was the objective of that appointment: to buy an opening in NY-23.
He gave the incumbent Republican the job of Secretary of the Army. Dede was running to fill out his term.
Obama doesn’t have the political acumen to triangulate as skillfully as Clinton. Clinton learned enough from the 1994 election to adopt the mask of a middle of the road Democrat and told Hillary to take a hike with her health care plan. Pelosi is an independently elected official, Zero may not be able to restrain her.
The editorial is referring to the former Congressman from the 23rd, who was made Sec/Army by Obozo.
Thanks - always good reading.
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