The Myth of '08, Destroyed
Irish Mike
"WASHINGTON -- Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and
make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for
resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But
the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It
demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.
In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its
fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering
in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics
-- most prominently, rising minorities and the young -- would bury the GOP
far into the future. One book proclaimed "The Death of Conservatism,"
while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the
Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party
of marginalized angry white men.
This was all ridiculous from the beginning. 2008 was a historical anomaly.
A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war
weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a
politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse
since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.
Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism.
Virginia -- presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone
Democratic in '08 for the first time in 44 years -- went red again. With a
vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican
gubernatorial candidate won by 17 -- a 23-point swing. New Jersey went
from plus 15 Democratic in 2008 to minus 4 in 2009. A 19-point swing.
What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished. In 2009 in
Virginia, the black vote was down by 20 percent; the under-30 vote by 50
percent. And as for independents, the ultimate prize of any realignment,
they bolted. In both Virginia and New Jersey they'd gone narrowly for
Obama in '08. This year they went Republican by a staggering 33 points in
Virginia and by an equally shocking 30 points in New Jersey.
White House apologists will say the Virginia Democrat was weak. If the
difference between Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds was so great, how come
when the same two men ran against each other statewide for attorney
general four years ago the race was a virtual dead heat? Which made the
'09 McDonnell-Deeds rematch the closest you get in politics to a
laboratory experiment for measuring the change in external conditions. Run
them against each other again when it's Obamaism in action and see what
happens. What happened was a Republican landslide.
The Obama coattails of 2008 are gone. The expansion of the electorate, the
excitement of the young, came in uniquely propitious Democratic
circumstances and amid unparalleled enthusiasm for electing the first
African-American president.
November '08 was one-shot, one-time, never to be replicated. Nor was
November '09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm -- and definitive
confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political
history.
The irony of 2009 is that the anti-Democratic tide overshot the norm --
deeply blue New Jersey, for example, elected a Republican governor for the
first time in 12 years -- because Democrats so thoroughly misread 2008 and
the mandate they assumed it bestowed. Obama saw himself as anointed by a
watershed victory to remake American life. Not letting the cup pass from
his lips, he declared to Congress only five weeks after his swearing-in
his "New Foundation" for America -- from remaking the one-sixth of the
American economy that is health care to massive government regulation of
the economic lifeblood that is energy.
Moreover, the same conventional wisdom that proclaimed the dawning of a
new age last November dismissed the inevitable popular reaction to Obama's
hubristic expansion of government, taxation, spending and debt -- the tea
party demonstrators, the town hall protesters -- as a raging rabble of
resentful reactionaries, AstroTurf-phony and Fox News-deranged.
Some rump. Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber
liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates
(at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the "rump" rebelled. It's the natural
reaction of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush
through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the
one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election -- and of the
mandate it allegedly bestowed -- is the fundamental cause of the
Democratic debacle of 2009. "
Irish Mike
"The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other
people's money."
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K9way
so then "THE SKY ISNT FALLING ?"
Just when you think that youve been gypped ..the bearded lady comes and
does a double back flip!!! John Hiatt in "Buffalo River Home"
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brewmaster
> so then "THE SKY ISNT FALLING ?"
Luckily for all of us, even you libtards, likely not.
>
>
> Just when you think that youve been gypped ..the bearded lady comes and
> does a double back flip!!! John Hiatt in "Buffalo River Home"
Brew
--
Hatred is purity...weakness is disease!
FEAR - Foreign Policy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOCcbKAhlY0
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O-PGManager
in the house, including -1 in a super reliable Republican district.
Opie-GManager
Rec.Gambling.Poker
Assistant Newsgroup Coordinator reporting to Mr. Popinjay
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Raider Fan
> Yes Election 09 was a huge day for Republicans. They picked up -2 seats
> in the house, including -1 in a super reliable Republican district.
>
> Opie-GManager
> Rec.Gambling.Poker
> Assistant Newsgroup Coordinator reporting to Mr. Popinjay
Congrats on the promotion!
"This has got to be some sports-related crap, that's all Raiderfan gives a
fuck about." -- Paul Popinjay 2/27/09
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Follow
> What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished. In 2009 in
> Virginia, the black vote was down by 20 percent; the under-30 vote by 50
> percent. And as for independents, the ultimate prize of any realignment,
> they bolted. In both Virginia and New Jersey they'd gone narrowly for
> Obama in '08. This year they went Republican by a staggering 33 points in
> Virginia and by an equally shocking 30 points in New Jersey.
>
>
> Irish Mike
>
> "The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other
> people's money."
I think the above paragraph is the most descriptive of what happened.
What happened is that the Democratic base was not energized to come out
and vote like they were in '08. I don't think it's time to celebrate just
yet. We have to wait for the dumb kids to stop being interested again and
stay home.
Those crying emos who get offended if you even suggest Obama sucks are the
ones who got him into office.
Follow :)
O-PGManager
> What happened is that the Democratic base was not energized to come out
> and vote like they were in '08. I don't think it's time to celebrate just
> yet. We have to wait for the dumb kids to stop being interested again and
> stay home.
>
> Those crying emos who get offended if you even suggest Obama sucks are the
> ones who got him into office.
What hurt Corzine the most in New Jersey were the three words "Goldman
Sachs Billionaire". That's why I voted for a 3rd party candidate.
Opie-GManager
Rec.Gambling.Poker
Assistant Newsgroup Coordinator reporting to Mr. Popinjay
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Jerry Sturdivant
"Irish Mike"
> "WASHINGTON -- Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate
> Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult.
> Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise
> money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important
> effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes
> the great realignment myth of 2008.
How many Republicans got elected? Two, wasn't it? In a mid-term election?
For this the sky is falling? Take off those red glasses.
> In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep .
A sweep of two? OR GASP! WAS IT THREE?
> This was all ridiculous from the beginning.
> 2008 was a historical anomaly.
Yea; right; think nothing of it.
Jerry (lol) 'n Vegas
- "MEOW"...SPLAT..."RUFF"...SPLAT...(Raining cats & dogs)
Blackwood
God bless the conserva-tards!!!! They should have a Special Olympics for
you guys.
Proud to be one of the 69,000,000+ Americans who voted for Barack Hussein
Obama. Scoreboard, mutha fuckas.
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Travel A
Dopey Manager blithered:
Yes Election 09 was a huge day for Republicans. They picked up -2 seats
in the house, including -1 in a super reliable Republican district.
I wrote:
The California 10th district was already Democrat, Moron. It's in the
San Francisco Bay area, a district the Demcrats could hadly lose. And at
that, the race was competitive.
Also, the N.Y. 23rd district isn't a "super reliable Republican
district" as you idiotically put it. It was reliable for the particular,
liberal Republican incumbent who held the seat for years and years.
That's why Obama appointed that liberal Republican to the office of
Secretary of the Army; to create a vacancy and a Democrat opportunity.
The New York Republican party isn't conservative, imbecile, it's
liberal. The 23rd distict county chairmen chose a liberal Republican
woman candidate who was so left that she was endorsed by the Daily Kos
and
ACORN.
If there were a primary, the Conservative Party candidate, Hoffman,
would have won the seat easily. He would have run as a Republican and
won the primary and the general election. As it turned out, because it
was a special election with no primary, he ran as a third party
candidate; the vote-split allowed the Democrat to win. The left wing
Republican woman dropped out, but still got 6% of the vote, and she also
"threw" her votes to the Democrat.
Also, Hoffman wasn't even in the race 30 days before the election. Sarah
Palin's endorsement made him "somebody" to the voters and he knocked out
the left wing infiltrator.
None of the above disadvantages for the conservative candidate will
happen in the 2010 mid-term elections; this race was unusual.
Btw, the N.Y 23rd district will be up for eletion again next year.
Try posting when you know what you're talking about, Dopey Manager.
O-PGManager
picking up a whopping -2 house seats.
Opie-GManager
Rec.Gambling.Poker
Assistant Newsgroup Coordinator reporting to Mr. Popinjay
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Travel A
The Republicans swept the Governor, Lt. Governor and AG seats in VA by
huge numbers. Obama won this state in 2008. Independent voters broke for
Republicans by a 30% to 36% gap over Democrats.
The Republicans won the governorship of N.J., a heavily Democrat state,
with a third party split and an incumbent who out-spent the Republican
candidate by 4 o 1.
The Republican governors will be using their state power to support
Republican policy and candidates.
The Democrats gained a lone, relatively powerless House seat under
highly unusul circumstances that had no bearing on Democrat support;
they'll probably lose the seat back to the Republicans in the 2010
mid-term elections next year.
Yes, you should "take it back." Actually, you haven't really said
anything but a couple of dumb one-liners, displaying zero knowledge and
no argument.
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