Election Redux

A few thoughts regarding Election Night...

1. My old law school compadre Jay Webber is the chair of the New Jersey GOP and one of the key players on the team that got Chris Christie elected in New Jersey. As Geraghty notes, those folks deserve some kudos -- they caught a lot of flack in recent weeks as the race narrowed, but they stuck to their strategy and won an impressive victory for New Jersey.

2. Politico says that even safe Dems are feeling the heat today. That might give the lie to Speaker Pelosi's belief that last night was a win for the Dems in the House because of NY-23.

3. The media spin on NY-23 seemed to be that the GOP is kicking out moderates and going for ideologically pure candidates, and that this was bad for the GOP. It's bad to lose an election, but losing the seat is mitigated by the belief that Scozzafava wasn't too different from Owens. The seat is back up next year, and this time the GOP gets to run a primary -- which is effectively what happened between Scozzafava and Owens this time.

4. I don't know if the election is a deathblow to Obamacare. But the patient is definitely struggling, now that Senate Dems are openly speculating that the Senate version might be in a holding state into next year.

5. The Dems doth protest a little too much about the election not being a referendum on Obama. I don't think this reflects people's views on Obama, but it does reflect their views on his agenda and priorities. The President is still well-liked, but he's not able to sell refrigerators to Eskimos any more. At this point, he may not be able to convince some o them to buy gloves. The rhetoric is still there, but people have started to notice it's empty. That's not good for him or his party.

6. Most important point here is pretty simple -- in a bad economy, it's not good to be an incumbent. even Michael Bloomberg's $100 million only bought him a small margin of victory. If the recession is a double-dip or unemployment continues to lag the perceived or real recovery, 2010 will be bad for incumbents.