2009: Politics 101
October 29, 2009
The key Virginia, New Jersey and New York elections are upon us this
week, but what will we learn from them? Probably a very simple lesson.
At this writing, it appears that Republican Bob McDonnell is headed for
a landslide victory in the Virginia governor’s race, embattled
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine may just survive in New Jersey and the
Republican nominee in a New York congressional seat in GOP hands for
decades will likely finish last.
The results of the three races appear to be so diverse that no clear
political pattern is likely to emerge. One could argue that this
election could still become defining if GOP nominee Chris Christie
manages to pull out a win in New Jersey, Conservative Party candidate
Doug Hoffman upsets Democrat Bill Owens in the New York special
congressional race and Republicans gain a large number of seats in the
New Jersey and Virginia legislative elections. While all of the
aforementioned is possible, everything unfolding as just described is
unlikely.
Rather, what these disparate elections again clearly tells us is that
the campaigns presenting the most clear and consistent message win. In
the modern television era, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama
have best understood the art and tenets of political campaigning, which
led to their obvious and successful electoral results.
McDonnell, a strong conservative in a state that has clearly been
trending towards the Democrats, has run a virtually flawless campaign,
thus he is poised for a huge win within what should have been a
less-than-friendly electorate. He concentrated his message on job
creation and improving the state’s transportation problems. Meanwhile,
McDonnell’s opponent, Charlottesville state Sen. Creigh Deeds, never had
a clear message – couldn’t decide if he wanted to raise taxes or keep
them constant, whether Virginia would opt in or out of the public
healthcare option and never showed how being governor would improve
voters’ lives. McDonnell is driving the turnout and will most likely win
and sweep the other statewide Republicans into office with him.
New Jersey Gov. Corzine had to run a much different campaign. Knowing
that their man was in poor political shape with hard and fast negatives
that wouldn’t come back, the New Jersey Democrats set out to make
Republican Chris Christie just as unpopular as Corzine. Despite having a
large lead throughout most of the race, and polls showing the people’s
overwhelming concern was paying the highest taxes in America, Christie
failed to drive home one central message. He didn’t properly deflect
Corzine’s charges – even those unflattering ones that subtly referred to
Christie being overweight – and his campaign evolved into being reactive
and covering too many issues without an underlying theme. It’s clear
that the average New Jersey voter doesn’t like Gov. Corzine and are
disinclined to vote for him, but Christie, even if he wins – and the
election is still too close to call – never personalized the voters’
disapproval of his opponent.
Dede Scozzafava is a New York assemblywoman, commonly viewed as the
most liberal Republican in the state legislature. She won the GOP 23rd
district congressional nomination because, under New York special
election law, only the party county chairmen choose their respective
nominees. Since New York’s 23rd district includes or touches 11
counties, just those partisan chairmen had the power to elect a nominee.
This means, to win the congressional nomination, a person only needed to
convince six people.
Scozzafava soon found herself in a three-way race and being attacked
by both the left and the right. While polls generally show that being a
moderate is the ideological part of the spectrum in which the largest
number of people fall, candidates of this persuasion usually don’t fare
too well. Both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)
and Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, who unsuccessfully tried to
convince the GOP county chairmen to choose him, simultaneously launched
attacks on her about the same issue – raising taxes! The Hoffman and
DCCC ads pointed out that she had repeatedly voted to increase taxes as
a member of the legislature – more than 190 times, according to the
Democrats’ data. While it frequently happens that a candidate in the
middle gets hit by both sides, it is rather unusual to see the left and
the right both attacking with the same message.
Democrat Bill Owens understands that all he has to do to win is keep
his partisan base intact. The Republican candidates will likely gain a
substantial combined majority, but Owens has the best chance of winning
a plurality election because a united Democratic base is certainly large
enough to overcome a split on the right. As the election closes, Owens
and Hoffman are on the upswing – particularly the latter candidate – and
Scozzafava is falling fast.
Though the 23rd congressional district seat in New York has been in
Republican hands for decades, it did support President Obama last
November and does elect many Democrats. Scozzafava, trying to play the
race down the middle, has helped polarize the electorate, thus leaving
her on the outside looking in. It is likely that she finishes in third
position on Election Day, with either Owens or Hoffman, as the
Independent, winning.
Though these interesting campaigns are being run in three very different
places, they do remind us that the candidate who can best communicate a
simple, well-defined message is usually the candidate who wins. Politics
101 in action again!
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