His supporters certainly have their shovels at the ready, but no amount of digging through Tuesday’s election results will produce a pony for the President. Sullivan gives the excuse that will probably become the party line—it’s the economy:
The votes tonight are anti-incumbent votes in protest at economic crisis and the slow pace of recovery. And they are not, it seems to me, some national referendum on Obama’s first nine months.
But if it’s the economy, it’s Obama. He rammed through a gigantic “stimulus” bill, promising that it would prevent the economy from getting this bad. Indeed, he said it would keep unemployment below 8 percent. Unemployment is now on the verge of 10 percent.
Then, adding insult to injury, his administration began making transparently false claims about how many jobs had been “created or saved” by his stimulus bill. As that cadre of right-wing knuckle-draggers, the Associated Press, reported:
An early progress report on President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program.
It’s equally absurd to claim that this nothing to do “with the health insurance fight.” That reform was a factor is clearly demonstrated by the announcement, by Democrats whose internal polls surely told them what was coming, that Obamacare won’t pass this year.
No matter how vehemently Sullivan and other supporters deny it, these elections were a referendum on Obama’s lackluster performance. The man went to NJ on behalf of Corzine, who plugged Obamacare in his concession speech BTW, and the voters gave him the raspberry.
Palin bashers like Sullivan will no doubt gloat over in Doug Hoffman’s loss in NY-23, but the statewide elections in Virginia and New Jersey were obviously about Obama. And those big losses portend unpleasant things for the President’s party in 2010.
UPDATE:
Dan Riehl concurs:
CNN and most other media is saying this was nothing about Obama. Fortunately, big media is increasingly talking only to itself, or the faithful, so don’t let it get you down. This election was all about Obama.
And so does Lorie Byrd:
Hope and change has been exposed for what it always was — bigger government, higher spending, higher taxes. Americans are not in favor of that kind of change and they are now making their voices heard not only through organized rallies, but at the ballot box.
Yep.
Post a Comment