Posted on 10/30/2009 7:13:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
On Friday’s Situation Room, CNN forwarded an idea proposed by The New Republic’s Peter Beinart- that Democratic losses in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey this year would result in the reelection of President Obama in 2012. An on-screen graphic during a discussion of Beinart’s hypothesis read, “If The Dems Lose Next Week: How it might help them in the long run.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer read the New Republic contributor’s idea during a “Strategy Session” panel discussion with Republican Mary Matalin and Democrat Paul Begala 53 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour: “Peter Beinart, writing in The Daily Beast, says...it might be good for the Democrats if the Republicans win both Virginia and New Jersey, the governors’ races next Tuesday. ‘Let’s imagine,’ he writes, ‘that Democrats lose next week because the GOP’s conservative base flocks to the polls while liberals stay home. For Obama, that wouldn’t be so terrible. The more confident right-wing Republicans become, the more likely they will nominate a Palin-like zealot in 2012.’”
Beinart sounds like he’s channeling ABC’s Clare Shipman, who, after President Obama’s trip to Copenhagen failed to secure the Olympics for Chicago, bizarrely argued that this loss was actually good for the Democrat.
Both Matalin and Begala didn’t buy this hypothesis one bit:
BLITZER: You like his [Beinart’s] logic there?
MARY MATLALIN: It’s an argument supported neither by logic nor data. He argues that off-year elections are not predictive for mid-terms or subsequent presidential elections unless there’s a Republican victory which portends a negative impact on the next election. That’s illogical on its face, but it’s not supported by data either. These are not conservatives of any ilk, either, of his description, ‘kooky’ conservatives or [unintelligible] common sense conservatives. It is independents that are flocking away from the Democrats because they do not like the - those very voters that swept Obama in and expanded the Democratic majority- they do not like the aforementioned expansive government.
BLITZER: Paul?
MATALIN: They do not like the debt. In New York 23 [the New York 23rd congressional district race], there wasn’t a run on conservative social issues. It was on the debt, and that’s why Hoffman got in and that’s why independents are flocking to him.
BLITZER: All right. Very quickly, Paul- go ahead.
PAUL BEGALA: Well, the debt, of course, was created by the Republicans, and Bill Clinton, who I worked for, left the White House- he handed President Bush the greatest surplus in American history. But the interesting- I think Peter Beinart is wrong. He is a very smart guy, but he’s wrong. Mary is correct about that. It’s never good to lose, and Democrats shouldn’t think it’s good if they lose.
I’m watching Virginia, because it’s a test run of what a lot of Democrats like to do. They seem to believe in the politics of differentiation: ‘Oh, I’m different from Obama.’ Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia, says- would not say that he’s an Obama Democrat. He, in fact, then came out and said if the public option is passed and states can opt out, I would probably opt out. So he’s running away from Barack Obama, in a state Obama won by six points. Let’s see how that works out for him. My guess is he loses by ten points or more by trying to separate himself from his party’s president.
Neither Matalin nor Begala addressed the second part of Beinart’s theory, which concerned the viability of a “Palin-like zealot,” or, more plainly, a conservative presidential candidate for the Republican Party. But it’s certainly interesting to watch the two of them throw cold water on the hypothesis CNN seems to be forwarding.
—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.
Then why did they even run candidates?
This is a laugh
Truth is...they will be.....better off.
CNN already spinning their probable loses haha.
How about if they lose NJ, VA, NY, and CA?
They’re desperate to spin Tuesday’s election results.
Gotta love it. They are already waving the white flag
Exactly right...it's not the Republicans, but the Independents, who are more knowledgeable on the issues and are upset.
Deeds ran away from Obama only insofar as the polls told him to. Begala is a thoroughly dishonest snake.
Please stop by the FReepathon thread and give it a bump. If you haven’t donated yet, please give it some thought.
Thank you!
The debt exists to fund the Unconstitutional Federal spending advocated and demanded by Democrats (and by socialists, but I repeat myself.) Eliminate all such spending (at least 80% of the Federal budget) and existing tax receipt far more than cover what remains.
CNN's drinkin' a big ole batch of Kool-Aid ...
Nobody is talking about it, mainly because it is miniscule compared to the state elections on Tuesday. But Albuquerque elected a Republican Mayor and a Republican City Council a few weeks ago. This in a city which has had Democrats running it for many years and in a state which threw out the Republican candidate for the Senate and the three Republican candidate for the House in the last election. We went from three Republicans in Congress to zero.
So here is hoping that was just the start of a massive trend over the next three years.
A debt the forehead forgot to mention, the Messiah tripled in six months.
Those were probably sour grapes anyway.
It will all be blamed on racism, that is my first choice.
That is all the left has remaining in their skulls full of Xanax left for an excuse.
This is priceless!
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