This post is for the one-one hundred of one percent of you that give damn about what happens in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races tomorrow night. I dabbled in New Jersey politics more than a decade ago working on a statewide race that in the closing hours broke for the Republicans. The extent of my involvement in the campaign between Gov. Jon Corzine and Chris Christie is two-fold. First,i watched several of the ads where it was alleged that Mr. Corzine invoked Mr. Christie’s weight as a reason he’s unfit for the job. I’ve never known a grown man use the “you’re fat” insult in a political campaign, so it caught my interest. Second, my now sister-in-law has been moonlighting for the Christie campaign for the past week.
In Virginia, a far-right Republican, Robert F. McDonnell, appears poised to cruise to victory over Democrat R. Craig Deeds in a state that President Barack Obama won in 2008.
I bring both of these races up because much has been made about the possible outcome of these two races. What will it mean for Mr. Obama? Will it serve as a signal as Democrats prepare for the mid-term elections next November?
Adam Nagourney of the Times writes,
At the very least, the results in the governors’ races, if not predictive, are quite likely to drive the political narrative, bolstering or diminishing Mr. Obama’s political stature as he seeks to rally a divided party. The outcome could, to a limited degree, help measure whether Mr. Obama’s success last year was a phenomenon limited to him or the early signs of a long-term Democratic resurgence. And it may offer a hint of the thinking of independent voters, the real swing group in American politics, who were so critical to Mr. Obama’s success and who polls suggested have been put off by Mr. Obama policies
I’m not so sure that’s accurate, at least not in New Jersey. First, Mr. Corzine has never been popular in New Jersey. After spending millions of dollars on a US Senate bid, he won election by only three points. Eying the governor’s office, he infused $38 million of his own money into the general election only to win by ten points. When this election began he had an approval rating of forty percent. Second, the dominant issue in the race is a state issue: property taxes. There’s not much Mr. Obama can do about either one of those. Maybe he can help drive turnout. Maybe. But Mr. Corzine started down a path towards defeat long before Mr. Obama entered the picture. Remember the SUV wreck in which he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt?
Virginia, a state vastly different than New Jersey, is a re-match. Mr. McDonnell has already defeated Mr. Deeds once, which naturally put Mr. Deeds at a sizeable disadvantage. Current governor Democrat Tim Kaine isn’t nearly as popular as Democrat Mark Warner was when he left office. And Mr. Deeds chose to run a left of center campaign, something that neither Mr. Warner or Mr. Kaine did when they both ran successfully. Of course, Mr. Obama won Virginia in 2008 with fifty-three percent of the vote which created the argument that he should be able to exercise his political clout to the benefit of Mr. Deeds. Perhaps. After all, Mr. McDonnell is a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regents University and a staunch conservative, something that voters have rejected in the past two gubernatorial elections. Yet, seven in ten voters in Virginia said that Mr. Obama would not factor into their decision at all thus debunking the idea that this is an early referendum on Mr. Obama. (He currently maintains an approval rating in Virginia of fifty-four percent.)
Regardless of the outcome of both of these races, there are so many other factors at work beyond Mr. Obama’s control that it makes it difficult to attach any political significance to him. Still, I know some pundits, like Mr. Nagourney, will. I’ll be watching cable news tomorrow night to find out.