Good News for the GOP? Not So Much.

[WilliamPitt]

(Photo Illustration: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted From: ddharmasphere, snapsi42 and dutchlad / flickr)

Good News for the GOP? Not So Much.
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 04 November 2009

Ever watch "SportsCenter" on ESPN? Pound for pound, it's pretty much the most consistently entertaining program on television, but if you watch enough of it, you really get a sense of the similarities shared between sports reporters and political reporters. ESPN, like CNN, MSNBC and even Fox News, has to fill 24 hours with programming each day. More often than not, there are enough games, events and high-profile arrests in the sports realm to fill the time for ESPN, just as there are usually enough murders, car chases, wars, balloon boys and stories about puppies who found their way home to fill the time for the news channels.

Sometimes, however, both "SportsCenter" and the news networks find themselves seemingly without sufficient content to make the nut. If there's an off-day for most teams during baseball season, for example, ESPN is forced to show the same handful of highlights over and over again, and then has to fill the rest of the time with hardcore analysis of stuff nobody really cares about. Conversely, if one big event happens - Terrell Owens demands a trade to Neptune, for example, or Roger Clemens admits to freebasing pine tar - the entire network focuses like a laser beam on it and leaves everything else on the cutting room floor. The way these events get reported is of a type, as well: One guy says something about it, and she reports on what he said, he reports on what she said, someone else writes an article about what they said, and presto, a consensus is reached because everyone was too lazy to do anything other than report on other people's "reporting."

That is sports journalism in a nutshell, and that is political reporting to a "T." We're all seeing an example of this now that the news networks, as well as quite a number of newspapers, have come together to declare Tuesday's off-season elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia to be some kind of earth-rattling triumph for the GOP and a devastating defeat for the Obama administration. CNN and Fox have been crowing about a "GOP sweep" thanks to Republican victories in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and because Maine passed another virulent piece of anti-gay legislation.

It wasn't just the TV talking heads spouting this line. "The Republican victories in the races for New Jersey and Virginia governors put the party in a stronger position to turn back the political wave President Obama unleashed last year," reported The New York Times on Wednesday morning, "setting the stage for Republicans to raise money, recruit candidates and ride the excitement of an energized base as the party heads into next year's midterm elections.... The results in the New Jersey and Virginia races underscored the difficulties Mr. Obama is having transforming his historic victory a year ago into either a sustained electoral advantage for Democrats or a commanding ideological position over conservatives in legislative battles."

Not to break away from the pack here, but the situation deserves a little more in-depth analysis than what we've gotten so far, which has basically amounted to these news people playing umpire during a close play at the plate. Obama is out because they say so, even though it wasn't the last out, there is plenty of game left to play and the blue team is still way ahead on runs. You can't argue with the ump, though, so that out is officially A Big Deal.

Not so much.

First of all, the Democratic candidate in New Jersey, Jon Corzine, was an unbelievably unpopular incumbent who ran a tragically poor campaign. Corzine's unpopularity vastly predates Obama's impact on the electorate, and was the entire reason he lost. As for Virginia, well, that state has been a tough get for any Democrat for a couple of generations now; Obama's success there in the 2008 presidential election was the exception and not the rule for Democrats historically, and speaking of history, the party that wins the White House has gone on to lose the Virginia governor's office one year later every time since the Carter administration, so we're not into any kind of mold-breaking situation there.

Second of all, these were two statewide elections where Obama was not on the ballot, and there is no national significance whatsoever behind two states out of fifty voting for Republicans. Furthermore, Democrats cleaned up in local elections all across the country, especially in mayoral races, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of breathless reporting on this facet of yesterday's vote coming from the news folks. The umpire made the call, and that's how it goes. Or something.

Speaking of the national picture for the GOP, it is difficult to make a cogent argument that two statewide gubernatorial wins are enough to alter the country's opinion of the party, especially since the country's opinion of Republicans remains monumentally bleak. Just two weeks ago, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported:

Less than one in five voters (19 percent) expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decisions for America's future while a whopping 79 percent lacked that confidence.

Among independent voters, who went heavily for Obama in 2008 and congressional Democrats in 2006, the numbers for Republicans on the confidence questions were even more worse. Just 17 percent of independents expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decision while 83 percent said they did not have that confidence.

On the generic ballot question, 51 percent of the sample said they would cast a vote for a Democratic candidate in their congressional district next fall while just 39 percent said they would opt for a GOP candidate.

And, perhaps most troubling for GOP hopes is the fact that just 20 percent of the Post sample identified themselves as Republicans, the lowest that number has been in Post polling since 1983. (No, that is not a typo.)

Finally, the idea that yesterday's elections bode well for the Republican Party might make for good television, but that doesn't make it right. The race in New York's 23rd District has far more national import than the other two, and the writing on the wall doesn't make for good reading for the GOP going forward. The election went sideways several weeks ago when moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava came under fire from the high priests of the far right because they deemed her not conservative enough. Ersatz luminaries like Limbaugh, Beck and Palin jumped on board the third-party candidacy of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and the resulting bedlam eventually drove Scozzafava out of the race. Scozzafava stepped aside after endorsing the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, who went on to win Tuesday's election by a margin of 49-45.

This was a nifty win for the Democrats, because the seat was formerly held by Republican John McHugh, who vacated the seat after he was tapped by President Obama to serve as secretary of the Army. Beyond the pick-up, however, is the fact that the whole national Republican infrastructure has been shaken up thanks to this race. The hard-right GOP base revved itself up and successfully tore down an electable moderate member of their own party. If they get it into their heads to do this in other races come 2010, we could very easily watch the GOP eat itself next year, as its ground troops attack and soften up fellow Republicans, making them ripe pickings for Democratic opponents. The Democrats have been expecting to lose seats in 2010, something that nearly always happens during the first midterms of a new presidency, but open warfare within the GOP could very much mitigate the damage.

Speaking of the NY-23 race, memo to news reporters: the Democrat won. It isn't a "sweep" when the other team wins a game. The news people should ask the sports reporters for a refresher course on athletic terminology. It's probably a good idea to have your facts straight before your broadcasters open their mouths or your printing press puts ink to paper.

A wild idea, I know, but it might be for the best.

http://www.truthout.org/11040910

[Champion Jack]

1. Thanks Will

[WilliamPitt]

2. Any ol' time

:)

[jus_the_facts]

3. "Roger Clemens admits to freebasing pine tar..." News at 11 ...11:30 ...12 ...12:30 ...

...infinity! :rofl:

[madinmaryland]

4. A clarification on the VA race.

The democratic candidate, Creigh Deeds, ran a very weak campaign. He was a conservative dem, who had no chance of carrying the heavy democratic areas in NoVa. Interesting I heard him on the radio a couple of weeks ago, on the Kojo Nnamdi Show (NPR) and a caller asked him why we should vote for him and why he was not able to articulate what he stood for. That pretty much summed up his "campaign".

So yes, the two Democratic governor candidates who lost were unpopular or poor candidates.

I guess we need to make sure that we field quality candidates.

[KansDem]

5. I noticed USA Today was crowing for the GOP today...

Va., N.J. give GOP reason to celebrate

By Susan Page, USA TODAY



WASHINGTON — Republicans swept governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday, giving the GOP bragging rights by winning two key states that Barack Obama carried a year ago.

Democrats scored an upset in a closely watched congressional election in Upstate New York that spotlighted the GOP's ideological divide.

--more--
USA Today

So the GOP can brag about its victories in NY and VA, but the Dem win was due to an "ideological divide." :eyes:

[humbled_opinion]

6. I think you are leaving out a key important fact about the NY-23rd

Bill Owens is a Blue Dog and on some issues was even more conservative then Dede. His position on the Public Option as he campaigned was against it....

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0809/Dem_House_candidate_against_public_option.html

If that is the message of the electorate then it paints a diffent light on this historic election, Don't you think?

[WilliamPitt]

7. I don't.

It was a GOP district. The fact that a Democrat won it, no matter their stances on certain issues, and especially in the face of Teabagger fury, is significant.

My 2 cents, of course.

:toast:

[humbled_opinion]

9. Your point is only true if you believe

That all the disgruntlement (teabagger fury) is strictly Conservative/Republican....

I happen to know that many Independents and many Conservative Democrats are upset and the issues upsetting the cart are 1. Economy 2. Out of control spending.

Question,

How long do you think that Obama can continue to slam the prior administration for his inherited budge defecits and over spending on the U.S. War machine, while he doubles down on those defecits and continues the senseless war spending; before the thinking people actually start saying, well if Bush did it and that was bad then what makes you doing the same thing, good?

Obama should be up on Capital Hill every night pounding away at healthcare reform and forcing Congress to give him the Bill that he wants and that helps all the people.

He should start with a Single Payer option based on medicare rates and tell the uber rich that they will support this with their tax dollars even if we have to go back to the same tax rates on the rich that were in effect when IKE sat in the oval office.

A wonderful speech that would make. It could be called the America is calling on its most well off to give back now in its time of need. The most patriotic thing you can do right now for the country is pay higher taxes. Obama is the only person that could sell that speech and have people happily writing enormous checks on April 15th.

But he is dithering and allowing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to do the heavy lifting and neither one of them is good at it.

Just saying!!



:fistbump:

[WilliamPitt]

10. (facepalm)

[WilliamPitt]

8. Bunt

[WilliamPitt]

11. One last