Daily Loaf

In addition to tonight’s election for mayor and City Council in St. Pete, there are governors’ races in  New Jersey and Virginia this off-year election, which political analysts invariably call a referendum in part on the leadership in Washington.

I never heard that said as often before this decade, but I’m willing to go for that ride.

In 2001, a year after George W. Bush (barely) took over the White House, voters in Virginia and NJ voted for Democrats for governor, Mark Warner and James McGreevey respectively.  What did that portend for the Congressional elections in 2002?  Absolutely nothing, as it turned out, as the Republicans took more seats in the Congress.

Now it’s true in 2005 that the Dems took both of those states again in governor’s races (Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine, respectively), and then the Dems stunningly took back the House and Senate in 2006.  But I think most of you would agree that there were a few things out there, like the increasingly unpopular Iraq war, excessive government spending on the behalf of Republicans both in Congress and the White House, and what was known as the “culture of corruption” (Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley, come on down!) that played a far greater role in the Democrats’ success.

All that said, I do not want to underestimate the dissatisfaction that is felt in the country toward the government right now, a year after the financial crises hit and with unemployment at its highest levels in over three decades.  There is serious unhappiness in parts of the country.  The question is: Do you blame Barack Obama and the Democrats for that?

Let’s look at Virginia.  Republican Bob McDonald is expected to beat Democrat Creigh Deeds by a substantial margin tonight.  Republicans are seizing on this as an example of what they say were absurd reports in the media a year ago that Virginia, which voted for Obama last year and has voted for Democrats in the last three major state elections this decade, was now becoming firmly a Blue state.

Obviously, that’s not the case.  But a good part of why Deeds will lose tonight is that he’s a horrible candidate.  I gleaned that from this story in Newsweek last month.

Over in Jersey, the three-way race is extremely close between incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Chris Christie.  NBC’s Chuck Todd said this morning that if Corzine loses, it will send shock waves through incumbent Democratic Senators and Representatives, even though his (potential) loss would not necessarily have anything to do with their agenda.

President Obama has put more of his considerable persona and reputation on the line for Corzine, going out on the stump for him in recent weeks, and having an advisor, Joel Benenson, do some work for the New Jersey incumbent.

If folks want a better barometer of how President Obama is truly doing, in addition to looking at the myriad of polls that are released constantly about him, you could learn something by reading a story in today’s NY Times.  There,  reporter Jeff Zeleny went to Iowa, the site of Obama’s epic victory in that state’s caucus in January of ‘08, to hear from people, including Republicans and Independents, who voted for the president and are now expressing their disappointment.

Interestingly, several people say that they will feel even more disappointment if Obama follows the call of General Stanley McChrystal and sends tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

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