When the White House spin-doctors say President Obama did not lose in this week’s elections, they are right. It was not Obama who lost big, nor was it his campaign model that went down to defeat.
The big loser on Tuesday night was Obama’s policy platform. Tuesday’s races did not demonstrate deep dissatisfaction with the president as much as they confirmed the shallow nature of his victory last year.
Election 2008 was a triumph of personality and an understandable reaction to eight years of George W. Bush. Election 2009 was a test of whether other people can market Obama’s ideas.
In Virginia, Democrat Creigh Deeds did not run an Obama-style campaign, but he did run on Obama’s ideas. Deeds promised tax increases to invest in government priorities.
He vilified his opponent, former Attorney General Bob McDonnell, for turning down funds from the president’s stimulus package and for voting against another state jobs program. Despite his own moderate political history, Deeds aggressively portrayed himself in television ads as a champion of the liberal social values Obama embraces.
Deeds brought in Obama, who urged Democrats to re-create the good feeling they had in 2008, but Deeds failed to create the same good feelings. His 18-point loss was shocking in its magnitude and brought with it a five-seat loss for Democrats in the state House. McDonnell won even in populous Fairfax County – no Republican had done so in 12 years.
In high-tax New Jersey, the state government has been the largest net creator of jobs since 1999, if you include public school teachers. Think of the state as a never-ending stimulus package. Public sector unions are king, and Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine was in bed with them -literally, with one of the union bosses, a lady named Carla Katz.
When President Obama promises huge savings through increased spending on health care, he’s actually taking a page from Corzine’s book. The soon-to-be former governor asked voters in 2007 to let him borrow $450 million for stem-cell research.
The investment, his administration claimed at the time, would cause such dramatic “reductions in health care costs, savings in work time lost, and decreases in premature deaths” that it would create (I’m not making this up) $73 billion in economic activity in the state – with a “b” – over nine years. The state’s voters showed that they understand math when they rejected the plan in a referendum.
Corzine, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs executive, brought Obama to his state three times and outspent his Republican opponent three-to-one. His state party even spent money to bolster a third-party candidate who was taking votes away from the Republican. It was not enough to save Corzine — not even in Democratic New Jersey, whose current stagnation and debt are the results of liberalism run amok.
The Democrats’ only noteworthy victory on Tuesday came in a unique three-way special election in New York’s North Country. The local Republican establishment had chosen Dede Scozzafava, a nominee who backed Obama’s positions on labor, energy, taxes, abortion, health care – you name it. This resulted in a political rebellion.
By the time she dropped out of the race (and endorsed her Democratic opponent), the Republican had already lost most of her support. A third party conservative, who was woefully oblivious to the district’s local issues, narrowly fell short.
Based on the other outcomes Tuesday night, and the Democrat’s plurality finish, Republicans missed a big opportunity here. They probably could have won a conventional race, had they picked a mainstream nominee in the first place.
The lesson for 2010 is not that conservative ideas are enjoying a resurgence, or that Obama has lost his charm. Rather, it is that conservative ideas never died, and that Obama’s victory of 2008 was a triumph of image over issues.
David Freddoso is an editorial page staff writer who can be reached at [email protected].
