Well, now that "Decision 2009" is over, we can safely say all the important questions have been answered. Was the election in the frozen tundra of New York's 23rd Congressional District a referendum on Conservatives vs Moderates in the Republican Party? Ask Fox. Was the never-in-doubt Governor's race in Virginia a rebuke of Barack Obama? Ask MSNBC. Was the not-as-close-as-you-thought defeat of Jon Corzine a repudiation of men who foppishly dropped the "h" from their first name? CNN knows. Was the closer-that-expected election for mayor in New York affected by a six game World Series? Inquire at ESPN.
The answer to the burning question as to what we learned from the governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia, the answer is ...nothing. Jersey first. Corzine was wildly unpopular long before the President proposed healthcare. He was losing his grip on power well before the tea-baggers showed on Fox News. No one in the Garden State trudged to the polls on Tuesday to express an opinion on Barack Obama. They voted against Jon Corzine. The happy beneficiary of that sentiment was Chris Christie who happened to be a Republican. Had the party labels been reversed, the result would have remained the same: incumbent out...new guy in.
Virginia is a bit different. Bob McDonnell defeated Creigh Deeds because Deeds ran the single most inept campaign since John McCain. McDonnell is a social neocon of the first magnitude. He's one of the last of the "bare-foot and pregnant" crowd. The choice should have been one guy walking upright; the other, not so much. Sadly, Deeds never bothered to tell anyone who he was. Having somehow beaten Terry McCauliffe in a primary, he apparently felt the fight was over. The voters of Virginia felt otherwise. If you wish to draw a conclusion fror this contest draw this one: if you run a crumby campaign you will likely be the one making the early concession speech to an empty ballroom.
With regards to the imperial election in New York, you can't help but wonder; if $85 million only buys you 51% of the vote, what would a landslide cost? Michael Bloomberg laid out $152 for every New Yorker that circled his name. For that money you could almost buy a ticket to a Yankee game. Still, New Yorkers take exception to having their term limits laws ignored even by a mayor as reasonably popular as Little Mikey. In the future Mayor Bloomberg would be advised to try for something less stressful... like Eliot Spitzer's press agent.
And now we come to the Land That Time Forgot...New York's chilly 23rd Congressional District. This place is so far upstate that snow is considered a natural resource. It's also home to some of the country's most rock-ribbed conservatives. The 23rd hasn't voted for a Democrat practically since the Erie Canal opened. It was impossible for the GOP to lose this seat when the President nominated Congressman John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army. Ah, but no one ever went broke underestimating the ineptitude of the Republican Party. The party locals nominated Dede Scozzafava to run in a special election. But wait! Ms. Scozzafava is pro gay. She's pro choice. She's (dare we say it) moderate. That would never do.
Determined to cause a problem where none existed, the neocon purists decided to abandon sweet Dede in favor of a "true" conservative, Doug Hoffman. Never mind that he didn't actually live in the district or understand what issues mattered to the locals, he had his social ducks in order. Apparently Alaska's own Sarah Palin assumed that anyone with frost in their ears was her kind of people. After all, the populations are almost identical: 600,000 or so people trying to keep warm. Sarah lent her 1,000 watt smile and her lower wattage brain to the contest. This sort of carpetbagging went over like a Jello snow shovel. The Republicans were able to turn a sure victory into another Congressional vote for the Blue team. These guys couldn't get a Muslim elected in Iran.
So, what have we learned from "America goes to the Polls, 2009"? From Jon Corzine we learned that incumbency is it's own punishment. From Creigh Deeds we discovered that campaigning isn't really underrated. From Mike Bloomberg we find out that the third time isn't always the charm or three strikes and you're out. And from the "defeat from the jaws of victory" crowd in New York's 23rd district we learned that up state New Yorkers can smell manure even under all that Alaska snow.
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