Daily Loaf

With time hopefully comes perspective, so we will again revisit what nationally some political analysts are deciphering from Tuesday’s elections across the nation.

One of the more interesting takes I read this morning comes from Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal, in a column titled “The Permanent Tea Party.”

Henninger writes about how the GOP is “spinning” the results in Virginia and New Jersey (where Republicans were victorious in gubernatorial elections) as “proof” that voters are fed up with liberal ideologues in the White House and Congress, but adds, “it’s deeper than that.”

He goes on to conclude:

So the Republicans “won” Tuesday. Now what?

Just as the Democrats in 2008 ran mainly against “Bush,” the Republican political model seems to be to let Democratic failure dump states like New Jersey and Virginia into their control. But I think most voters, no matter their party registration, know that in the past 12 months the stakes for them have suddenly become larger than political “control.”

Unless leadership emerges equal to the new world voters see they have fallen into, volatility in America’s election returns is going to be the norm for a long time.

The more immediate question is how it affects the Democratic-led Congress, and the fight to get a health care reform bill passed.

The House is poised to vote perhaps by Saturday on their version.  And House Democrats are interpreting the results from Tuesday’s vote in different ways.

Gene Taylor, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi, is looking at the race in Virginia, where Republican Bob McDonnell cleaned Democrats Creigh Deeds’ clock, and concluding, “I consider Virginia a bellwether state, and would encourage the leadership to get back to the center.”

Then you have Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen, Chairman of the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), saying, “I think the message was: We need to get things done.”

North Florida Blue Dog Representative Allen Boyd  tells the NY Times that he believes the Party is still on the right track, but must follow through in 2010, saying, “I think the issues of health care and energy independence are important issues the president has outlined early on, and those are issues we ought to focus on.”

This morning on MSNBC, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough was mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for saying Tuesday night was a good night for Democrats.  No it wasn’t, but it was a good night for House Democrats, whom Ms. Pelosi represents.

That’s because the Democrats won in New York House District 23, in a seat that had been held for ages by a Republican. That (potentially) gives Pelosi another vote for her agenda, as does John Garimendi winning in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco on Tuesday, in a special election for Ellen Tauscher’s seat.

Going back to Henninger’s thesis: Look at New York City, where Democrats are now kicking themselves (and criticizing Barack Obama) for not getting more behind their candidate, Bill Thompson, who stunningly only lost by 5%, in a race where  he was outspent by an astronomical margin.

What were New Yorkers trying to say? A few things. But the man is an incumbent in ridiculously rough economy. Who knows if Congressman Anthony Weiner (the favorite of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann for his support of a single payer form of health care reform) had taken the plunge and taken on Bloomberg, perhaps he could have won?

President Obama has already said that next year he plans on seriously addressing the deficit. That’s too late for his critics, but Obama did not run for the highest office in the land to stand pat, thus his passion to change the health care system.

Pundits have been predicting for months that the Dems will  endure a ‘bloodbath’ in 2010. Maybe, since historically the party in power loses seats, and the Dems have won a ton of them the past two election cycles, including many in areas that are quite conservative. But how Washington reacts to Tuesday’s election is unclear, because the results were truly not that specific, other than that voters are pretty darn angry.

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