In New Jersey, “union brass knuckles were not enough to carry” New Jersey’s Democratic Governor “over the finish line,” but union support likely made the difference in Bill Owens narrow victory in New York’s 23rd congressional district.  Earlier today (Tuesday), when I heard on the news that with Dede Scozzafava’s endorsement meant of the Democrat meant that unions which had previously been divided were now united behind Owens, I felt a disturbance in the force.

The good feeling I had about today’s elections was tarnished a bit.  Given the haphazard nature of Hoffman’s campaign, I doubted he had the chance to organize a good ground game, essential to victory in a special election. He may have the enthusiasm, but the unions had the organization.  It seems to have paid off.  As did Rahm Emanuel’s gamble.

Something else too may have hurt Hoffman.  The media attempt to portray him as a right-wing extremist surely hurt him with libertarian voters in the district.  They made Scozzafava out to be a moderate and attributed conservative dissatisfaction with the one-time GOP nominee to her “moderate” stands on social issues and not her liberal positions on fiscal one.

The Scozzafava endorsement clearly helped; Owens was leading in Jefferson County, her “strongest territory.”  Given that he has represented the area, she has certainly earned the affection of many of her constiuents.

A disappointment, to be sure, but a reminder that, in special election, organization matters.

And as to Nick’s point, I’ll just say that I think Congressman-elect Owens arrives neutered by the results in the Garden State and the margin in the Old Dominion.  The political class can’t ignore that the Washington Post’s best efforts notwithstanding, Bob McDonnell won Fairfax County, being, I believe, the first Republican to do so this century.  His victory, in short, does nothing to advance the Obama agenda.

While Owens may not have run as far behind Obama as did Corzine and Deeds, he did run three points behind the Democratic presidential nominee.

I know, I know. I should really be counting my blessings. And I hate to piss on our parade. A HUGE sweep in Virginia (expected) and an incredibly pleasant surprise up in New Jersey (I have to be honest, I wasn’t counting on that, but WOW!). All GOPers should be glad this morning as both major candidates of the party were successful in knocking the ruling power of these two states out and replacing them with Republicans.

On the other hand, I have to say…

Now, I’m a Republican–registered and active (as far as the Hatch Act allows me)–and as such, I’m bully for our side, as they say. But I’m first and foremost, beyond party affiliation, a small-government, low-tax, individual-liberty small-’l’ libertarian. And from that perspective, something else happened last night:

In a solidly (for over a century, we’re constantly being told) Republican district, the clear fiscal conservative lost in (ostensibly) a two-man race against a leftist lawyer. While the constituencies of New Jersy and Virginia alone each dwarf that of NY-23, and together render it completely negligable, something larger happened last night that gives me great pause as to the direction of our great Nation.

It’s not simply a (yet another) Congressional rubber-stamp vote for the Stalinization of the American health care industry, massive tax increases, enormous government expansion and Pelosiesque class warfare that was garnered last night. It was, in a conservative district a repudiation of smaller government and lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. Clearly the only candidate in NY-23 last night running on shaping the US the way small-government, small-’l’ libertarians desire lost. And not in Manhattan or Hollywood. Not in Hyde Park or Washington, DC. In rural, upstate New York.

The entire NY-23 episode was a healthy blood-letting for the GOP, yes. We have proven to all who question that ours is the party of fiscal restraint, personal responsibilty, individual freedom, and smaller Federal government. Ask Ms. Scuzzafava about that.

But a bigger question seems to remain, thanks to Congressman-elect Bill Owens: Can we turn these core American beliefs into an actual movement? This summer’s tea parties and rallies against big-government gave me hope about a new American sense of Independence. The repudiation of this newly-reborn sense of respect for our founding principles last night in (of all places) upstate New York gives me great concern about our Nation and its ability to embrace these precepts that are the very basis of our unique experiment in the first place.

The bottom-line is this: Over the past 9 months, we have heard every political pundit and web-spinner worth his salt interpreting poll results and the general mood of the Country as basically this:

While the president remains terribly popular on a personal level, Americans are en-masse revolting against his policies. They like Barack Obama; they just don’t like what he’s trying to do. His personal approval ratings are still quite high, but his policies are terribly unpopular.

Bla, bla bla.

Virginia and (to an even greater extent) New Jersey tell us that President Obama is wildly unpopular. Not able even to deliver the bluest-of-blue Garden State to an incumbent(!), and the gubernatorial vote swinging about 25% from his victory in last year’s presidential contest clearly shows that the president’s political wave has ebbed to say the least. On the other hand, a red district (historically, yes, I know it went to Obama last year) in rural New York just sent a guaranteed vote for Nancy Pelosi and every cockamaime big-government Leftist scheme to the House of Representatives. This turns every political analysis of the past spring, summer, and fall on its ear.

From where I’m standing, I’d have traded New Jersey and Virginia for NY-23. Am I crazy? Please say so.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

Just watched Michael Barone on FoxNews and he alerts us to really big news in New York’s Westchester County.   Republican Rob Astorino ousted incumbent Andy Spano with 57.65 of the vote.  Obama carried the county last fall with 63.39% of the vote.  Astorino ran more than twenty points ahead of John McCain.

Seems Republicans are once again relevant in socially liberal suburbs.  They’re going to need to sound a lot like New Jersey’s Govenor-elect who also ran ahead of John McCain in those once-Republican suburbs.

The Garden State which went 57 percent for Obama has a Republican governor as his supporters chant, “Yes, we can!”  (Or was it, “Yes, we did!”)

UPDATE: I do hope the president is listening to this speech, especially where he said that he doesn’t want the government to fix every problem.  His supporters cheered that line heartily.  He promises to turn the state capital upside down.

He talk about cutting taxes, spending and onerous regulation.

A lot of good stuff in this speech, sounds like my kind of Republican.  And I am delighted that he has focused on government reform and avoided social issues.  Let’s hope more Republicans are paying attention.  (Will try to get a copy of his acceptance speech so I can quote him more accurately.)

I like this guy.

It looks like Bob McDonnell is running ahead of George Allen’s tally in 1993 when that good man enjoyed the largest margin of any Republican in the history of the Commonwealth.

UPDATE: McDonnnell won Fairfax County by a whisker, 51-49. This is a very big deal, very big.

Despite the millions he spent in trashing the Republican, he’s remarkably gracious in defeat.

He’s praising labor unions now. If he weren’t for them, would he have cracked 40% of the vote?

With Chris Christie’s victory in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, we hereby pronounce that Obamacare is undeniably and reliably dead.

UPDATE: I may be Mayor of the gay conservative city in the county of the land of blogs, but it seems that a few coroners have thoroughly examined Obamacare and have averred it’s not only merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead:

BYRON YORK: In Virginia and New Jersey, Health Care Was A Losing Issue.

Dick Morris: A Deathblow To ObamaCare.

This is a day of independence for us and our descendants!  Let the joyous news be spread!  A government attempt to overhaul healthcare at last is dead!

Wonder how much Corzine paid per vote?

FoxNews follows suit.

It doesn’t look likes it’s going to be close. And what does that say when a Democratic President made multiple stops to a Democratic State for a Democratic Governor and the Republican wins?

Corzine running about 13 points behind where Obama ran in the state last year.

This is huge, fellas, huge, HUGE, HUGE!

Time for a Victory March

BULLETIN: Associated Press has called the NJ Governors race for Christie at 10:07PM.

It sure looks that way.   At 9:45PM with nearly 60% of the vote in, Christie is up 50% to 43% over Corzine.  Daggett is polling below 6%.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Everything I’m reading suggests Christie may pull this off.  I’m going to be doing some number crunching in second, but here’s just  one  piece of encouraging news from Jim Geraghty:

This looks big: With 100 percent of precincts reported, Republican Chris Christie has won New Jersey’s Gloucester County by about 2800 votes, a county that Christie Whitman lost in her 1997 reelection bid.

UP-UPDATE (from Dan): Ok, at 7:12 PST, 10:12 PST, I concluded some number crunching based on some exit poll data and came up with Christie ending up with 49.43% of the vote. That means, if Daggett holds at 5 points, the Republican wins by a comfortable margin.

Obama carried this county by 12 percent last year.

. . .  for only the second time in the history of the Commonwealth.

I am with Jim Geraghty on this one, preempting the networks.

UPDATE:  FoxNews makes it official!

UPDATE (from Bruce):  Now the question is — will the GOP take command of the VA Legislature?

UP-UPDATE (from Dan):  Jennifer Rubin indicates that the GOP will pick up at least one seat.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicates timetable for health care may slip.

Last fall, Democrat Barack Obama won the presidential election with 52.87% of the popular vote to Republican John McCain’s 45.60%.  In the Commonwealth of Virginia, Obama’s share of the popular vote was nearly identical to his national take, 52.63% (a difference of less than 1/4 of 1%).  McCain did a little better in the Old Dominion, but not by much (46.33%), than he did nationwide.

In New York’s 23rd congressional district, Obama also ran slightly below his national total, capturing 52% of the vote.

Given how closely Virginia’s vote mirrored the national vote, it’s no wonder Hugh Hewitt called the Commonwealth’s elections “the key story tonight.”  While Virginia has long been a Republican stronghold, the only Southern state in 1976 to vote for Jerry Ford over the South’s native son Jimmy Carter, it has being trending Democratic in recent years, electing Democrats in the past two gubernatorial elections.  Both its Senators belong to the president’s party.

With the growth of the federal government in recent years, more federal employees have been buying homes in Northern Virginia, making, Fairfax, the Commonwealth’s largest county, reliably Democrat.  Should Republican Bob McDonnell poll well there tonight, it will be a real sign of a revitalized GOP.  

Not just that, given that a lot of Congressfolk (and their staffs) make their homes in Northern Virginia, a strong McDonnell showing might spook Washington Democrats.

With Virginia’s tally last fall mirroring the national tally, a sign of Democratic erosion here would clearly indicate that Obama’s margin in 2008 had more to do with the dynamics of that election than with an ideological realignment of American voters.

The mainstream media has pretty much missed the biggest story about the energy on the right not just in the fall campaigns concluding with today’s elections, but since the first tea party took place sometime last February.

So committed are they to pushing the narrative of an attempted coup by social conservative extremists that they’ve missed the real story, a grassroots uprising against increased federal spending.  Frank Rich’s rant this past Sunday was emblematic of that ignorance, albeit a quite extreme emblem.

Hugh thinks Democrats are focusing on internecine warfare on the right to deflect attention from Democratic losses:

The idea of a GOP “civil war” is suddenly all the rage among Beltway-Manahttan media elites, for the very obvious reason is that it gives them something to discuss other than Virginia. Democratic spokesmen on the networks tonight –think Paul Begala– will be looking for anything to divert attention from the expected blowout in Virginia. . . .  No matter how much noise the talking heads make about anything else, the key story tonight is Virginia

I agree.  In my next post, I’ll explore just why Virginia is the key story in terms of finding a larger meaning in election results.  For now, I want to focus on the real issue driving grassroots activism on the right:  federal spending.

Indeed, spending’s the issue which sunk Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd congressional district.  Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg posts an e-mail he received from Steve Horwitz, who teaches economics at St. Lawrence University:

I live in NY 23 and you are exactly right about it being Republican not conservative.  I think you and others are also right in noting that what really got people upset about Scozzafava was not her social liberalism per se, but that in combination with her moderate-to-liberal views on economic issues.  The real rebellion here is a Tea Party rebellion:  people are just tired of spending and debt and that is what motivated the conservatives to run Hoffman. 

Interesting counter-factual:  suppose Scozzafava was still pro-choice and pro-SSM but anti-stimulus and had a better record on tax-and-spend issues.  I think we would not have seen the Hoffman candidacy and I think she would have won the seat fairly easily. 

Emphasis added.  I don’t think this evidence though will dissuade many in the MSM to move from the preferred narrative.  If they really want to understand what’s going on on the right, indeed, what’s being going on on the right at least since 2006, they have to appreciate the salience of the spending issue.  

The ideas expressed on various tea party web-sites, the signs at the rallies, the rhetoric of the speakers indicates that they’re upset about the growth in federal spending.  And if the media were doing their job, reporting the news instead of trying to portray conservatives according to their prejudices, they might see it as well.

No, I’m not talking about New Jersey Democrats’ strategy to use indpendent Chris Daggett as a stalking horse for their candidate, incumbent Governor Jon Corzine.

Seems Garden State Democrats are using gang members to rustle up the vote for their ticket.

(H/t Jim Geraghty.)

With the Siena poll showing nearly one in five (18%) of voters in New York’s 23rd congressional district undecided, a strong trend toward Democrat Bill Owens could help him eke out a a victory. But, the small turnout at his rally with the Vice President suggests voters aren’t too fired up about the Democratic candidate–or the Democratic Vice President (or just that the Democrats did a lousy job publicizing the event which suggests they may not have a good ground game prepared for tomorrow).

Given that the Hoffman campaign has generated a lot of enthusiasm, we can be sure their voters will turn out today, but will their enthusiasm be contagious.  If so, look for a big victory tonight.

In New Jersey, if the undecideds break according to the traditional pattern, that is, against the incumbent (and so in large enough numbers to make up for the votes made up by Democrat/ACORN/SEIU shenanigans) Christie should carry the day.  He could also be helped by supporters of independent Chris Daggett deciding, at the last minute, to switch their support to the Republican, the Corzine challenger with the best shot at unseating the unpopular incumbent.

Note this chart from Pollster.com‘s roundup of polls showing that Daggett peaked a few days ago and has been on a steady downward trend ever since.  At the same time, Christie has reversed his decline and been on a steady upward trend perfectly paralleling that of incumbent Jon Corzine (hence its difficulty to see).

Since he and Corzine are advancing at the same rate, that suggest late deciders may break evenly for the two major party candidates. (more…)

In a Democratic state, running against a lackluster Republican opponent and with a war chest filled with twice as much lucre as both his opponents combined, with multiple visits by the charismatic President of the United States, Democrat incumbent Jon Corzine has resorted to playing dirty chests while corrupt organizations try to manufacture a few votes to help him retain his lease on Drumthwacket–and give Democrats something to crow about on Wednesday.

In order to divide the vote of those opposed to the unpopular Democrat, his fellow partisans have all but made independent candidate Chris Daggett into a stalking horse for the incumbent.  They’re making robocalls to voters, trashing Chris Christie, the only candidate with a chance of unseating the Democrat, urging them to vote instead for Daggett.

And now, we’ve got “ACORN on the scene.”

GOP officials recently received a phone tip from a hospital in Newark, reporting that people in ACORN t-shirts were in the facility signing up and collecting absentee ballots. New Jersey law allows anyone to take up to 10 absentee ballots at a time. The tipster reported seeing individuals in the ACORN shirts entering the hospital with blank absentee ballots and leaving with completed ballots.

There are reports out of Camden, New Jersey that voters are discovering that absentee ballots have already been submitted under their name. They did not authorize these ballots. Early reports suggested that the number of absentee ballots ‘requested’ in Camden city is higher than in any previous election. This will no doubt spark confusion on election day.

And not just a little bit higher:

Victor Negron, a campaign adviser for independent mayoral candidate Roberto Feliz, a former director of Camden’s public works department, says he’s shocked that more than fifteen times the normal number of voters are casting absentee ballots in Camden this year. (more…)

Politico has a fascinating story of the lengths to which Democrats went to secure Dede Scozzafava’s endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district tomorrow.  The effort in involved the White House Chief of Staff, New York State’s senior senator, the Speaker of the New York Assembly, the chair of the state Democratic Party and other heavy hitters.  They even dispatched a Long Island Democratic Congressman to the district to meet with the one-time Republican candidate.

Yet, if the latest polls are to be believed, it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.  One poll has the Conservative up by 5 points.  Another has up him by 17.

And this must be causing a lot of angst in the West Wing.  Because it’s pretty clear that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was behind his boss’s choice to tap then-Congressman John McHugh as Army Secretary, making his seat ripe for Democratic picking:

Obama won NY-23 last year by five points. So in an open seat race this year, a Democrat should have a good shot. Indeed, that’s precisely why Obama plucked the popular Republican incumbent from the seat to be his Army secretary — Rahm thought it was a likely pick-up. 

With Dede’s endorsement, that task seemed easier.  But, should the Democrat now lose, the White House will have major egg on its face, particularly as Administration officials decrying Hoffman’s success as a sign of the extremism of and rise of the “absolutists” in the GOP.

Seems citizens of this district won by Obama prefer extreme absolutists to the Administration’s man.

Rahm Emanuel may be crowing about locking down the Scozzafava endorsement, but he may not realize  that people don’t always respond to the type of back room political deals he orchestrates.  Chicago politics don’t play all that well in rural strongholds.  Just by securing a candidate’s endorsement doesn’t mean you win all her voters.

His strategy of padding the Democratic majority appears to be backfiring.

Of course the polls could be wrong.

If Republicans did this, it would make headlines all over showing the kind of dirty politics these angry white men play in order to keep their hold on power.  Jim Geraghty reports that, “Democrats have so much of a vested interest in independent Christopher Daggett splitting the anti-incumbent vote that they are putting resources into promoting him.”

The Democratic State Committee now admits paying for a robocall to Somerset County voters that slams Republican Chris Christie and promotes independent gubernatorial candidate Christopher Daggett.

A Democratic spokeswoman says the party’s chairman, Joe Cryan, was not aware of the robocalls when he denied that the state committee had anything to do with them yesterday afternoon.

If this gets out, it can only help Chris Christie, but the question is whether or not New Jersey (as well as Philadelphia and New York) media will pick this up.

This news merely confirms something I mentioned as just reported in a previous post.  Seems like Democrats are pulling every tactic from their bag of tricks to pull out a victory in the Garden State.  And Obama’s right there elbow-to-elbow with the New Jersey Governor who has presided over a meltdown of his state’s economy since taking office four years ago.

Guess that “new kind of politics” Obama promised in his campaign last year is just making Chicago politics national.

UPDATE: “It speaks volumes that the Democratic party in New Jersey feels the best use of their resources is to promote a third-party’s candidate instead of their own.”  Ditto that.

As I will doubtless repeat ad nauseum in the coming days in response to the endlessly biased coverage of the Tea Party movement and the related grassroots enthusiasm for Doug Hoffman’s Conservative candidacy in New York’s 23rd congressional district. the one thing missing from (most) media coverage is an appreciation for the resilience of the ideas which animated the rise of Ronald Reagan, an opposition to the seemingly endless growth of the federal government.

Even Barack Obama recognized the resilience of Reagan’s ideas.  He regularly reminded voters that he supported a “net spending cut,” emphasizing, in the third debate, his concern for fiscal prudence:

What I want to emphasize, though, is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.

Seems, however, that when GOP county leaders in upstate New York were looking for a candidate in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, they attributed Obama’s election not to his campaign rhetoric, but to his actions once in office.

Which leads me to repeat the question I asked in my very first post on this election: Do GOP Leaders Get that Fiscal Conservatism is a Winning Issue?

For the left to spin the Scozzafava meltdown as a sign of  Republicans making moderates feel unwelcome in the party, they must ignore several facts about her nomination and the support she received from local and national units of the GOP.  After county GOP chairs in upstate New York tapped the liberal Assemblywoman as the Republican candidate, the RNC and NRCC readily rallied to her cause, sending in money to the campaign and staffers to the districtsd.

The GOP sunk nearly one million smackers into her campaign coffers.

So, clearly the party establishment was really to rally round a “moderate.”  It’s the grassroots that revolted.

But, would the grassroots have revolted had Ms. Scozzafava been a “moderate” of the Giuliani school, liberal on social issues, conservative on fiscal and national security ones?  Or, how would a Cheney-like candidate have fared, conservative on all issues, but gay ones?

Having followed the tea party movement and participated in some of its rallies, I believe we’d be looking at an entirely different race today had Dede Scozzafava been a “moderate” of the Giuliani-Cheney school.  Had she embraced the ideas of the tea party protests and stood strong against the spendthrift “so-called stimulus,” the tea party activists wouldn’t have protested her candidacy.

As I’ve said before, it’s the federal spending, stupid.