It's ironic that so many of those who detest President Obama also believe the planet revolves around him. Whatever happens -- as long as it is bad -- is caused by the Democratic president, an overly cautious moderate somehow seen as a socialist revolutionary by hysterical foes. The defeat of Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey Tuesday is regarded as a repudiation of Obama policies by right-wing pundits and politicos. Surprisingly, Mayor Barrett's defeat in North Adams hasn't been attributed to Mr. Obama, but it may be yet.
The right wing media machine has less to say about the shocking results of the special election in upstate New York's 23rd congressional district, but that vote is more revealing nationally than the gubernatorial races. In that contest, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican of the kind once common in the party, was chased out by GOP leaders Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, ideological pursuits who would rather lose elections than give ground on policies and views that appall much of the nation. They championed right-wing extremist Doug Hoffman, a carpetbagger from outside the 23rd, who like his puppetmasters, probably couldn't find Watertown or Plattsburgh on a map.
Unknown Democrat Bill Owens, buoyed by the endorsement of Ms. Scozzafava and the votes of free-thinking Republicans, won the election in a district reaching to the northern
In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie won a governor's race that was a referendum on Democrat Jon Corzine, a multi-millionaire courtesy of Goldman Sachs who ran the state with the sense of entitlement of a Wall Street CEO. Mr. Obama's mistake was campaigning for Mr. Corzine, who is not representative of the enlightened, selfless form of governing the president has championed. Mr. Corzine lost not because of Mr. Obama's policies but because of his own.
In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell adopted a centrist platform and was careful to disassociate himself from the party's lunatic fringe, which left him alone. He benefited from the Democratic Party's inability to come up with a better candidate than malaprop-prone perennial loser R. Creigh Deeds. Mr. Obama took Virginia, but that was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won the state in 44 years. A Republican winning in Virginia is never shocking.
In this era of poisonous partisanship, it is too often forgotten that a party most often wins an election simply because it has a better qualified candidate. Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell won statehouses because they deserved to. The one time that ugly ideological politics intruded Tuesday was in upstate New York, where it was deservedly sent packing.
Font Resize
