Lessons from Last Night
Well, the inevitable cloud of stupid conclusory generalizations by the MSM about What It All Means continues to expand. Believing myself as qualified to make stupid conclusory generalizations as any cable asshat, I felt compelled to add a few before the cloud dissipates.
1. The new voters of 2008, the formerly disengaged new black voters and the young and youngish college types who turned out for the first time in their lives for Obama, somehow couldn't get excited enough about Corzine and Deeds to vote. Possibly the abysmal failure of either campaign to try to engage them was a factor. Getting them activated to turn out in 2010 is important. Not gonna happen if Congress racks up an F or a D on health care and carbon. Gonna take a B- on both at a minimum.
2. Luckily for us, Republican inability to learn the simple, obvious lesson of the last twelve years, "Club for Growth = Kiss of Death," is still intact. Once again, they are poised to conclude that their defeated candidates lost because they weren't conservative enough to overcome ACORN's perfidious cheating.
3. Unluckily for us, Democrats in Congress are also poised to miss an important lesson: people are really pissed at Big Finance and are ready to punish anyone seen as connected to Wall Street or insufficiently tough on Wall Street.
4. Efficacy of OFA not exactly helped by all the former brains of the outfit taking government jobs in January.
5. Wolf Blitzer is still an imbecile. And physical proximity to Wolf Blitzer still depresses the I.Q. of even the smartest people.
6. One party or the other his going to get hosed in 2010. Which one depends entirely on whether and when the job market turns around. No matter how much people say they're worried about the deficit, doing stuff that will make unemployment rise, like trying to cut the deficit right now, is political suicide for the party in power and a political bonanza for the party out of power.
7. In light of the foregoing, look for Ben Nelson, Lieberman, Bayh, Landrieu and the House Blue Dogs to start stridenly demanding huge budget cuts to control the deficit in 2010.
8. Christie is already screwed. Either he governs, and incurs the wrath of the right, or he refuses to govern, and incurs the wrath of everyone else.
9. Imagine Virginians' surprise when it turns out Republican ideas for how to deal with the economy are really, really stupid.
While I agree with most of your above comments Steve I particular agree with this one:
5. Wolf Blitzer is still an imbecile. And physical proximity to Wolf Blitzer still depresses the I.Q. of even the smartest people.
How Wolf Blitzer manages to remain the face of CNN is more of a mystery to me than how Pat Buchanan manages to remain on MSNBC.
November 4, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wolf Blitzer has no hope of ever being anything but an imbecile. Imbeciles Anonymous have asked him to take the pledge and adhere to their One Step Program, but Wolf can't STFU.
November 4, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent as always.
November 4, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Democrats in Congress are also poised to miss an important lesson: people are really pissed at Big Finance"
Poised to miss? Hardly. They aren't missing a thing. They are praying (most of them) that if they just don't say anything about it that nobody will notice that when it comes to being in the pocket of the bankers and crooked captains of Wall Street, the Democrats (including the President) are no different than the Republicans. The fact is that the majority of Democrats are just as corrupt and beholden to those rotten interests as the Republicans are and no amount of explaining it away can change that stubborn reality.
November 4, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
oleeb, a brilliant segue to my comment, related to hoping and praying the electorate is not paying attention. Alas, usually a safe bet!
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/trblmkr/2009/11/the-big-winner-bumper-sticker.php
November 4, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
10. Obama lost independents. Conventional wisdom: independents are moderates. Reality check: independents are disgusted with both parties and most especially the disconnected, "I've got mine, go find yourself some cake" entrenched establishment.
November 4, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The post is on Lessons of Last Night. Obama was not running for any other office and he was not a consideration for the majority of voters who pulled the lever on Tuesday.
November 5, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
In New Jersey, Corzine, the unpopular Democratic Governor, was handily defeated by his Republican opponent. Exit polls revealed that President Obama's performance in office enjoyed an approval rating of 57 percent vs 42 percent who disapproved.
November 4, 2009 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's popularity is not going to help the country much unless he can translate it into getting office holders elected to help him put his policies into action.
November 4, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
He got a bunch elected in 2008 and had a damn good record on the ones he campaigned for in 2006. But a personal appearance by Jesus himself wouldn't have pulled Deeds out of his tailspin.
November 4, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deeds insisted on running against what Democrats in his state want. Corzine led Goldman Sachs bond house until 1998. Though he hasn't worked there for over a decade every time their name came up people were reminded how much they hate Wall St. banksters.
Having said that we lost two governorships and picked up two more house seats. Back to work.
November 4, 2009 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
It just gives us something to do in case we're bored with the cat-and-dog-fights already underway.
November 5, 2009 2:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right on all points. Number 7 scares me, #8 is spot on, but you should add Christie to #9 as well. I saw his ads day in and day out - he's got nothing.
November 5, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink