Obama Focusing On Election Nights Ahead, Not 2009
Tuesday night was one of those nights that President Barack Obama would like to forget. And will try hard to.
But his political opponents and even some of his allies won't let him.
Republicans won governorships in two states Obama had in his win column last November, New Jersey, a decidedly blue state, and Virginia, which looked mighty purple last year but has a more reddish tinge as of Tuesday night.
These weren't surprises. But Democrats had hoped that at least New Jersey would hang in there with them. It didn't.
His opponents will claim the Republican victories show his growing political weakness and that his leadership and ideas are being rejected by some of the very same people who helped elect him president. Even some of his allies may say this, if not to him then to each other.
But what does it all mean?
First off, Obama won't be as concerned about Election Night 2009 as he will 2010 when the congressional mid-terms happen.
And he won't be as concerned about the mid-terms as he will Election Night 2012 when he stands for re-election.
So while he would have liked to have won Tuesday, it's that first Tuesday night in November three years from now that he's really focused on.
He will console himself by saying the Democrats who lost Tuesday night did so because they were bad candidates, not because they were linked as Democrats to him.
And he will be largely right: All politics is indeed local. The Virginia and New Jersey races turned not so much on what Obama has or hasn't done but on the records and campaigns of the combatants in those races. The Democrats in both states were just unattractive to voters there.
Tuesday's elections were probably never quite as important as we in the media made them out to be. The end of last year's historic and exciting campaign and election left us craving some of 2008's adrenaline which probably explains why so much of the media coverage, especially on the cable channels, verged on the breathless.
It also means the president is going to move quickly to put the defeats behind him which shouldn't be hard. I'm guessing he'll publicly acknowledge the stinging defeats as soon as Wednesday but vow to move ahead on his agenda for the sake of the American people. And he'll reject any linkage of his performance and Tuesday's results.
Wednesday will provide the president with a highly visible opportunity to show that he has moved on, with an event in Madison, Wisconsin where he will talk about improving the education of U.S. K-12 students. No better way to show that you're moving forward than to talk about educating the nation's children.
Perhaps the strongest message the White House political team will take away from Tuesday night is that they need to pay even more attention to independents who played a big role in the Democratic defeats in Virginia and New Jersey and whose support will be critical for Obama to hold on to if he hopes to win re-election. Fortunately from the White House's perspective, he has time to repair bridges to them.
Still, the Democratic losses could make the president's job of getting health-care passed more difficult since some congressional Democrats will feel more vulnerable and less inclined to vote with him.
Meanwhile, Republicans got their mojo back, somewhat. The Republican governorships should provide a jolt of renewed confidence for what had been a badly demoralized party in search of some wins. Republicans are still in the political wilderness but they seem to have found a clearing in the woods.
At least for the moment. That's because the national party is still looking for a leader with the charisma and the message to effectively take on Obama.
But whatever clarity Republicans had hoped to gain about the future ideological direction of the party certainly didn't come from the closely watched New York 23rd congressional district election where the Democrat Bill Owens was projected as the winner over Conservative Douglas Hoffman in a district that has voted for the Republican for a century.
As for other elections the Maine gay marriage vote showed the conservative movement still has considerable ability to mobilize people on single issues, with 52.39% supporting a ban and 47.61% opposing it according to the count as of 12:30 am.
Obama won nearly 60 percent of the Maine vote a year ago. Yet, opponents of gay marriage were able to rally enough support in the state to get this result, which wasn't final but looking increasingly bad for opponents of the ban.
But while Maine appeared to be a setback for gays, Houston appeared otherwise as Annise Parker, an openly lesbian politician, succeeded in getting into a runoff for the mayor's office.
Meanwhile, a referendum expanding the rights of gay couples seemed to be on the path to victory in Washington state. So there appeared to be no clear trend either way on gay rights.
Anyway, the big story Tuesday night was the governors' races. But as I suggested earlier, the White House will view the results as a speed bump. The affairs of state move on and Obama has miles to go before the election he's most worried about -- his own.
Around midnight, an e-mail just popped into my inbox from the White House, a presidential statement marking the 30th anniversary Wednesday of the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. It ends with a warning to Iran's leadership,
It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.
That White House could have just as easily been directing that message inward: choose not to "focus on the past" represented by Tuesday's elections but move on to better days.
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