Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Nov. 3, 2009 Election Results
Well... don't expect a great deal of cheer from me.
The good news: Virginia. As Liz Sidoti of the AP put it, "Independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for Republicans on Tuesday as the GOP wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia..."
Yes, the GOP swept Virginia last night; conservative Republicans as far as I can tell. That's good news. As Bob Rayner of the Richmond Times Dispatch wrote, "It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Bob McDonnell's comfortable win in the race for governor of Virginia; not because it necessarily portends a GOP sweep in the 2010 midterms, but because it serves as a model for conservative and Republican victories in battleground states across the country."
Rayner continued, "there's no doubt that McDonnell ran as a clear-cut conservative -- as did his running mates for lieutenant governor and attorney general, who both won..."
Well hip-hip hooray - based on the campaign rhetoric at least. Now let's see how McDonnell governs.
As to Chris Christie of New Jersey...
(*SIGH*)
Yeah, yeah... he won; the Republican challenger won big in one of the bluest of the blue states. Cause for celebration...? Not really.
Christie is just another Jersey pol. He's "conservative" in the same way Al D'Amato was "conservative" - meaning more emphasis on the label than the underlying reality as measured by legislative action. Christie reminds me a bit of Trent Lott - or Tom DeLay without the brains. Christie is a guy who - IMHO - will say or do anything if he thinks it'll help him in the short term. Christie is a guy - again, IMHO - lacking intellectual firepower... especially as it relates to formulating economic policy.
We'll see. I hope I'm wrong. Time will tell.
Which leads us to... the bad news:
Hoffman lost.
We can debate the reasons he lost; we can blame Gingrich, blame Scozzafava, blame Hoffman himself... but in the end the only thing that matters is that Hoffman lost. The Democrat, Owens, won with approximately 49% of the vote - 49% of the vote in a district that is registered Republican (and therefore you'd hope would lean conservative) 174,221 to 123,299.
Well... Owens has a year in office till Election 2010. We'll see how he does. We'll see what happens next year.
Final thought... Newt Gingrich is dead to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Newt's been dead to me since 1994. Congratulations on catching up.
From Chris Chocola; President, Club for Growth --
Dear William,
As you have probably heard by now, Club for Growth PAC-endorsed candidate Doug Hoffman lost his underdog bid in yesterday's special election in New York's 23rd congressional district. Nominee of the Conservative Party of New York, and the first third-party candidate the Club PAC has ever supported, Doug finished with 45 percent of the vote, but fell short to Democrat Bill Owens' 49 percent. The official Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, took 5.5 percent of the vote and played the spoiler after dropping out of the race and endorsing the liberal Democrat in the final days of the campaign.
Doug's loss is a disappointment, but our efforts shined a national spotlight on the campaign and sent an important message to Washington insiders. The day the Club for Growth PAC entered the race, Doug was polling at 17 percent - with our help, he gained 28 points in just 36 days, and came very close to pulling off an historic upset against both major parties. It's now clear that had the Republican Party supported Doug or any serious conservative from the beginning, he would have won going away.
Party labels aside, conservatives lost nothing last night, as Scozzafava and Owens are both avowed liberals in support of Nancy Pelosi's agenda in the House of Representatives. Doug Hoffman was our only chance to bring real change to Washington, and in little more than a month, we almost helped him pull it off.
As attention turns now to the 2010 election cycle, there are a few lessons to be learned from last night's results. First, the Club's PAC reaffirmed its unique ability to identify and promote economic-freedom candidates early on and to draw conservatives around the country to their cause. Second, the Republican establishment learned that in these difficult times, voters - especially center-right voters - are drawn to principles, not parties. And most importantly, conservatives learned that the principles of limited government and economic freedom are ascendant heading into next year's elections, and that the Club for Growth PAC stands ready to fight effectively for those principles wherever we can do the most good.
Thank you for all you did in the historic NY-23 race. I say "historic" not because we won this battle - we didn't - but because I have a good feeling that this battle will set a tone for and pay dividends in the coming battles against national health care, for limited government, and to mobilize grassroots free-market citizens to rise up in other election contests in 2010.
Best Regards,
Chris
* Form letter; I'm on the mailing list.
BILL
Post a Comment