What a Difference a Year Makes!

By Michael Reagan | November 5th, 2009 | PERMALINK

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

One year ago Barack Obama turned the political establishment upside down with a resounding national election that, according to so-called experts, spelled the end of influence and legitimacy for the GOP for years, perhaps decades to come. However, a mere 12 months later, Republicans have dramatically turned around their fortunes with two high-profile gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey — both by comfortable margins.

Cartoon by Nate Beeler - The Washington Examinter

In Virginia, Republicans won the top three offices (Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General) in Virginia by sweeping margins. Republican Bob McDonnell won the gubernatorial race by a shattering 17 percent margin over Democrat Creigh Deeds.

Not only did McDonnell win in the vast majority of Virginia counties, but he also won in the three largest suburban counties: Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William, which trend Democratic and which Obama won by significant margins. He also took Obama successes among independents and turned it around to win 63 percent of those voters.

And while many Democrats now point to exit polls that indicate President Obama and his policies were not the driving force behind this phenomenon, the Democratic candidate there had a different take. In an interview in October, Creigh Deeds (D) blamed, in part, the Democrats’ national agenda as he trailed Bob McDonnell (R) in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. “Frankly, a lot of what’s going on in Washington has made it very tough,” he said.

In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie ousted incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine. The margin of victory was the largest by a New Jersey Republican in a statewide race in 25 years.

Chris Christie by Taylor Jones - Cagle Cartoons

Christie was significantly outspent by Corzine, who also had the advantage of having the full support of the White House and President Obama campaigning for him regularly. The victory was a 20-point reversal of Obama’s victory in 2008. Exit polls say Christie won 58 percent of independent voters.

So what does this mean for Republicans nationwide?

First, I believe that this demonstrates that after a couple of dismal cycles, Republican voters are once again energized and ready to work hard so that Republican candidates gain traction nationwide.

Next, the numbers in Virginia and New Jersey show the success Conservative candidates are having with Independents/Reagan Democrats in these key states - setting the stage to capitalize on these gains in the 2010 mid-terms and beyond.

Lastly, I believe that moderate Democrats will have a much tougher time supporting the Progressive agenda being pushed by the White House after seeing the president fail to bolster the struggling Gov. Corzine in a state the president carried by 20 points just a year ago. Thus, Republicans must recognize this potential dynamic and taking advantage of it to pursue more moderate and acceptable policies rather than those being promoted by the president, Speaker Pelosi or Leader Reid.

Political fortunes can swing — and swing rapidly. Just as the landscape seemed so inviting to Democrats one year ago, fortunes could once again swing back in their direction at the drop of the proverbial hat. This is especially true if Republicans fail to take advantage of the political opportunities in front of them.

It is time for Republicans to not only oppose the big government and big spending programs being proposed by national Democrats, but to also push forward their own ideas and their own agenda so that 2010 voters have a true alternative to the Democrats’ increasingly unpopular path forward.

We need our Republican leaders to put forward these sound solutions for practical governance, returning power to local governments and voters. On health care, immigration and energy, conservative values offer us commonsense solutions. Even ideas that are unlikely to see much debate time under the current president will ring out in the next election, as they did last night.

2009 was just the beginning.

—–

Mike Reagan, the elder son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is chairman and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation (www.reaganlegacyfoundation.org). Look for Mike’s newest book, “Twice Adopted” and other info at www.Reagan.com. E-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com.

©2009 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or Web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. For info contact Cari Dawson Bartley. E-mail Cari@cagle.com, (800) 696-7561.

Tags: Barack Obama, Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, Creigh Deeds, Jon Corzine, New Jersey, virginia

Comments

Comment from geoff
Time November 5, 2009 at 8:12 am

Uhm… am I missing something here? didn\’t Mikey post something about how it was absolutely imperative to vote against Dede Scozzafava in NY? Did that post disappear somehow? Whitewashed, censored? Strangely, Mikey makes no mention of that whole hoopla at all here. That would have really put a feather in the cap of his argument (look: people really do support extremist GOP candidates over unpopular Democrats); otherwise it\’s all spin.

Comment from Cal
Time November 5, 2009 at 8:59 pm

I’ll be interested to see how many of the usual suspects dismiss the truth of Reagan’s arguments with comments about “daddy’s boy” or “Mikey” or my personal favorite, “bitter neocon!” Hey, if you can’t shoot the message…

Comment from Stug
Time November 6, 2009 at 9:19 am

I admit that the election results are disappointing, though not surprising, particularly for Virginia. What is surprising is that Mikey managed to write a fairly cogent column without once falling back on “when my daddy was president…”. I’m impressed.
- Best I could do Cal, did it work for you?

Comment from Cal
Time November 6, 2009 at 8:57 pm

Stug. I know it was hard for you, but yes, that worked for me! Your comment should be taken as high praise for Michael Reagan. Now if I can just get you admit Bush had some small modicum of economic success amidst the so-called “nightmare”…

I’ll just add that while the results were disappointing for you, I hope they weren’t surprising. The wave of disgust in America with spending and bailouts is palpable and it’s showing at the polls.

Comment from Stug
Time November 6, 2009 at 9:29 pm

Cal: “Now if I can just get you admit Bush had some small modicum of economic success” - Oh, I’m sure there were some, doesn’t change the overall picture though.
“The wave of disgust in America with spending and bailouts is palpable and it’s showing at the polls.”
- I disagree. Sure, nobody is terribly please that Obama had to spend billions to stave off an economic freefall, but that isn’t what’s tipping the polls. It is the unemployment levels. If unemployment were lower then as many people wouldn’t be as concerned as they are. It is to be expected. The same thing happened when Bush was first in office, though not nearly as bad because the recession wasn’t as deep. That is where part of your 52 months of job growth come from, the climb out of the 2001 recession. But the runup to the Iraq invasion was the news then, not the unemployment rate. It took about a year and a half for companies to really start hiring again then, no reason to expect that won’t be the case again now, perhaps even longer since the recession was much deeper.
It may play to the GOP’s favor though if unemployment hasn’t dropped significantly before the 2010 midterms. If it does, I’m sure that they will try to claim credit for it in spite of the fact that it will just have been fortuitous timing.

Comment from Cal
Time November 8, 2009 at 1:32 am

Stug, I’ll grant you that unemployment is playing a role. However, you like most other liberals, just don’t understand the frustration with the Right and now the Middle wrt spending. This is a VERY big hot-button issue. My oft-repeated analogy of a family in debt borrowing money to get out of debt goes right over your (collective Left) head. You think spending is necessary to (what did you say?) “stave off economic freefall” but tens of millions of your fellow Americans disagree. It isn’t some tiny number MSNBC says showed up in DC. We believe the economy would already be recovered had we just left things alone. We didn’t need TARP1 or TARP2 and we damn sure didn’t need the pork spending bill called “stimulus” that was prophesied to leave unemployment at no more than 8.x%. It’s now at 10.2% and rising in spite of the much-vaunted “stimulus” package. Can we be honest here? That “stimulus” package was a (close your eyes if you’re easily offended) liberal’s wet dream. And if you REALLY want to watch me explode, just try and tell me one more time how many jobs we’ve “saved” as a result of anything! For the umpteenth time, back in the Bush/Kerry debate days when they were slamming Bush on job creation, if Bush had said, “Under my administration we’ve saved X-thousand/million jobs” what would the reaction have been? And yet the O Team says it regularly with impunity and the mainstream media never questions them! That blows my mind!!! Jobs “saved”? Are you kidding me? How do you measure that? Can the Department of Labor confimr your assertions? Give me a freakin’ break already!

“Fortuitousness” always plays a part in elections. Had the economy stayed strong or if the Republican Party had found a real candidate to run for president in 2008, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today and will be in two years from now. Somehow, something tells me you’ll have a slightly different take on this.

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