Lieberman Marching Further Right in 2010

By JONATHAN KARL
Oct. 30, 2009

Sounding more like an independent than a Democrat, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., tells ABC News he will campaign for some Republican candidates during the 2010 midterm elections and may not seek the Democratic Senate nomination when he runs for re-election in 2012.

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ABC News' Jonathan Karl chats with Sen. Joe Lieberman on the Capitol Hill subway

"I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the election in 2010. I'm going to call them as I see them," Lieberman said in an ABC News "Subway Series" interview aboard the U.S. Capitol Subway System.
Lieberman infuriated fellow Democrats in 2008 by supporting Republican presidential nominee John McCain as well as congressional candidates Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
The moves nearly cost Lieberman his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee, but after promising to be a loyal Democrat he was allowed to keep his gavel.
Now, he says he'll do it again.
"There's a hard core of partisan, passionate, hardcore Republicans," Lieberman said. "There's a hard core of partisan Democrats on the other side. And in between is the larger group, which is people who really want to see the right thing done, or want something good done for this country and them -- and that means, sometimes, the better choice is somebody who's not a Democrat."
Asked if he will seek the Democratic nomination when he runs for re-election in 2012, Lieberman said, "That's an open question."
"There are options," Lieberman said. "The other, obviously, is to just start as an independent, which is where I ended up in 2006."
He finds being an independent "liberating" because, "You're not tied to a particular inner group and feel that extra pressure to march in lockstep. I think that the public generally is fed up with all the partisanship, and us against them."
In 2006, Lieberman lost the Democratic nomination to liberal challenger Ned Lamont and went on to win re-election as an Independent. He currently calls himself an independent Democrat, but is counted as part of the Senate Democratic caucus.

In the big campaign in his home state of Connecticut next year, however, Lieberman said he will strongly support Democratic incumbent Sen. Chris Dodd, who faces a tough re-election battle.
"I believe Sen. Dodd will get re elected, but it's not going to be easy. This is going to be a tough year for incumbents," Lieberman said. "I hope I can help him get re-elected."
In the Senate, Lieberman again has angered Democrats by saying he is adamantly opposed to including a so-called "public option" in the current health care reform bill.

A governor's race that has nothing -- and everything -- to do with Obama

In Virginia, Democrats who came out in droves for Obama seem disinclined to vote Tuesday. Republicans, whose candidate is poised to win, see the election as a referendum on his first year in office.

State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate running for governor in Virginia, campaigns at a rally in Richmond. The Democrat, who is trailing in the polls, is a rather rumpled, self-effacing country lawyer who lives on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley and refers to himself as "a nobody from nowhere." (Steve Helber / Associated Press / October 29, 2009)

Reporting from Arlington, Va. - If Virginia seems poised to make yet another political hairpin turn just one year after helping elect Barack Obama president, the reason might be found on Sally Linderman's front lawn and Facebook page.

Linderman, 69, is typical of the newly energized Republican voters hellbent to make sure Robert F. McDonnell wins the race for governor Tuesday. She attended two rallies in the same week, has four signs stuck in her yard and even figured out how to post one on her Facebook page for the GOP candidate.

"We love McDonnell," Linderman declared, peeking out her front door to talk about her favorite subject -- the first opportunity to ding President Obama in an election some see as a referendum on his early months in office.

McDonnell, the state's former attorney general, holds a double-digit lead over state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds in what could spell the end of the Democrats' reign in the Old Dominion. Polls suggest that the younger voters and African Americans who turned out in droves for Obama seem disinclined to show up in this not very electrifying, off-year election.

Not very electrifying for Democrats, that is. Republicans are close to turning the tide that gave their rivals the last two governorships, both U.S. Senate seats and the first presidential win since 1964. For Obama critics, it's a chance to make the case -- in one of only two states holding governor races this year -- that the president's star is fading.

"This would not be happening if Obama hadn't gotten elected," Linderman said, citing GOP anger over healthcare reform and the swelling deficit. "I can Twitter now. And I got a smart phone. Last November, Republicans were in the Dark Ages."

The Democrats are blase by comparison. When Virginia Tech political communications professor Robert Denton recently asked 180 of his students if they planned to vote Tuesday, about a dozen hands went up. "Last fall, I was surrounded by Obamamaniacs," he said.

Deeds is running against history's trend. Since 1977, the party of the president has lost the governor's seat, a sign of both Virginia's contrarian streak and the inevitable letdown after a national election. But there is more than destiny at work with voters given to choose between two lawmakers whose personal styles are as different as their politics.

The moderate Deeds is a rather rumpled, self-effacing country lawyer who lives on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley and refers to himself as "a nobody from nowhere." He comes across better in a room than on TV.

The conservative McDonnell is an eloquent, made-for-TV suburbanite with the military bearing of a man who spent 21 years in the Army and reserves. The term "central casting" comes to mind.

The two faced off in 2005 for the attorney general job that McDonnell won by a whisker. This time, though, Deeds' campaign never seemed to find traction, and a last-minute outreach to Obama voters may be his best hope.

On Tuesday, the president campaigned for Deeds, drawing thousands to a Norfolk university campus where shrieks of "I love you!" and "Yes we can!" seemed less a reflection of roaring partisan energy than the fumes of Democratic fuel in an almost empty tank.

The question is whether Deeds, who often distanced himself from the White House, has embraced the president too late. The administration seems concerned about appearances should he lose. A Washington Post story quoted senior officials blaming Deeds for ignoring their advice, laying the groundwork to argue his defeat isn't Obama's failure.

Deeds came from 23 points behind last summer to beat state Sen. Brian Moran and former President Clinton confidant Terry McAuliffe in the primary. Then he burst out of the gates with a barrage of McDonnell attack ads.

The spots centered on a 1989 thesis written by McDonnell while he was a law student at Regent University, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. In it he said that working women were "detrimental" to the "traditional family" and that government policies should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

The polls tied for the only time. But McDonnell came back swinging, saying his views had changed and citing as proof his eldest daughter, who served as a platoon leader in Iraq. In the end, Deeds was criticized for running a negative campaign.

Then came a salvo from McDonnell, spotlighting Deeds' willingness to raise taxes to address a projected $100-billion shortfall in transportation funds. Deeds is shown in a TV ad waffling in response to reporters' questions and snapping at one female journalist.

"It was devastating. It combined everything he's criticized for -- raising taxes, not taking a position, being inarticulate. And he was rude to a woman, after having called McDonnell anti-working women," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

With a few days to go, Deeds would need to make a strong showing in left-leaning Northern Virginia to remain competitive. So far, not even the threat of victory by his deeply conservative opponent -- McDonnell opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest -- has moved Democrats to embrace him the way Republicans have their candidate.

Some Deeds' supporters concede the lack of enthusiasm is more about personal style than politics.

"McDonnell is the more polished candidate," said Lee Niederman, 63, a retired government worker from Alexandria and Deeds volunteer who showed up one Saturday to support him at a rally. "He has a Will Rogers sort of persona. Northern Virginians are used to a more sophisticated approach."

Last fall, a record 3.7 million voters flocked to the polls; this race will be lucky to draw 2.6 million, Sabato said, testing the staying power of Obama supporters as much as the president himself.

"That means a million voters are not going to show up," he said. "They are heavily Democratic -- young, minorities, suburbanites -- who were turned on to Obama."

Then again, this is a state that, since the Democrats' post-Civil War dynasty ended 40 years ago, has elected three Republican governors in a row, three Democrats in a row, two Republicans, then two Democrats. By that math, it's the Republicans' turn.

faye.fiore@latimes.com

Virginia Governor - McDonnell vs. Deeds

Polling Data

Poll	Date	Sample	McDonnell (R)	Deeds (D)	Spread
RCP Average	10/21 - 10/27	--	54.8	39.6	McDonnell +15.2
Roanoke College	10/21 - 10/27	569 LV	53	36	McDonnell +17
Rasmussen Reports	10/27 - 10/27	1000 LV	54	41	McDonnell +13
SurveyUSA	10/25 - 10/26	502 LV	58	41	McDonnell +17
Washington Post	10/22 - 10/25	1206 LV	55	44	McDonnell +11
VCU	10/21 - 10/25	625 LV	54	36	McDonnell +18

See All Virginia Governor - McDonnell vs. Deeds Polling Data

(After October 18 partisan affiliated polls will not be added to Election 2009 RCP Poll Averages.)

 

Tuesday's Elections and the Democratic Agenda

By KARL ROVE

Democratic enthusiasm for President Barack Obama's liberal domestic agenda—particularly for a government-run health insurance program—could wane after the results of the gubernatorial elections next Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey. GOP victories in either state will tell Democrats in red states and districts that support for Obama's policies is risky to their political health.

The more significant is the open race for governor in Virginia, a purple state. The Washington Post poll released Monday showed 55% support for Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell and 44% for Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds. The president is trying to reverse these numbers by stumping the state for Mr. Deeds.

Mr. McDonnell has relentlessly focused on the economy, transportation and education. Mr. Deeds tried to make the race about abortion and his opponent's supposed animus toward working women. But Mr. McDonnell understood that anti-Obama, anti-Washington sentiment was not enough to win and bent the contest back to jobs, roads and schools. He also has a good ground game to turn out the vote, which the GOP hasn't done for too many years in Virginia.


Associated Press

Former Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bob McDonnell, left, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Virginia State Sen. Creigh Deeds, right.
Rove2
Rove2

If Republicans also win the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general by five points or more, it will strengthen the case of those predicting a GOP "wave" in 2010.

Also watch the races for the 100-member Virginia House of Delegates. Republicans are hoping to add four seats to the 53 they now have. The bigger the GOP gains, the larger the warning for Democrats nationally.

Reaction against Mr. Obama and his policies plays a smaller role in the New Jersey governor's race. There, voters are principally concerned with whether they should keep incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine.

In 59 public surveys since January, Mr. Corzine has been at or above 42% just six times, normally a terminal condition for an incumbent. But Mr. Corzine opted out of New Jersey's campaign finance system, spending at least $24 million so far to Republican Chris Christie's $9 million.
About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Or, you can send him a Tweet@karlrove.

Neither major party candidate in New Jersey has offered a compelling or comprehensive agenda. At times the independent candidate, Chris Daggett, has appeared the only contender with an agenda to rein in property taxes. But the GOP is arguing there is too much corruption, too many taxes, and too few jobs under Mr. Corzine. It may be working: In one of America's bluest states the race is too close to call. If Mr. Christie pulls out a win, it would badly shake Democratic confidence.

The Republican Governor's Association has played what could be a decisive role in both states, spending $13 million on early and extensive TV blitzes. In Virginia, the association tattooed Mr. Deeds as a tax raiser and slippery liberal. In New Jersey, they cut Mr. Daggett's support in half by arguing a vote for him is a vote for Mr. Corzine.

Two other elections on Tuesday's ballot have national implications: the New York Congressional District 23 special election and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race. The special election in New York's nominally Republican district 23 was brought about when the White House lured an otherwise unbeatable GOP Congressman, John McHugh, into giving up his seat to become Secretary of the Army.

The contest shows the danger of smoke-filled backrooms in the age of tea parties and town-hall angst. New York law says each party's 11 county chairmen in the district pick their candidate. The local GOP chieftains settled on Dede Scozzafava, a five-term liberal Republican state assemblywoman. This led one of the disappointed nomination seekers, accountant Doug Hoffman, to mount a red meat campaign for the seat on the Conservative Party line.

With the GOP vote split, the lackluster Democrat standard-bearer, Bill Owens, is likely to win. If that happens, the combined vote of Ms. Scozzafava and Mr. Hoffman will signal what a GOP candidate chosen in a primary could get in the 2010 general election. House Republican leaders could help unite the party by saying now, before the election, that Mr. Hoffman is welcome to caucus with the GOP if he wins.

Finally, the Republican-endorsed candidate for Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, Judge Joan Orie Melvin, is mounting a strong effort against Democrat Jack Panella, despite a $1 million ad blitz targeting her that's bankrolled by Philadelphia trial lawyers. A GOP victory would indicate trouble for Democrats in a state Mr. Obama carried by 10 points.

A year ago, Democrats crowed that Mr. Obama had reshaped the political landscape to their advantage. Voters have lived under Democratic rule for nine months, and many of them, especially independents, don't like what they're seeing.

Tuesday's election will provide the most tangible evidence so far of how strong a backlash is building—and just how frightened centrist Democrats should be of 2010. For Republicans, it looks as if hope and change are on the way.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

Four Races Will Test the Strength of Obama's Majority

By Michael Barone

Five days from now the voters of New Jersey and Virginia will elect governors. Voters in the 23rd district of New York and the 10th district of California will elect new members of the House of Representatives to replace incumbents, a Republican and a Democrat, who were appointed to positions in the Obama Defense and State departments.
All four of these constituencies voted for Barack Obama 51 weeks ago. Obama won 57 percent of the vote in New Jersey, 53 percent (his national average) in Virginia, 52 percent in New York 23 and 65 percent in California 10.

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Yet all of this territory was once Republican. Suburb-dominated New Jersey voted 56 percent for George H.W. Bush in 1988. Southern-accented Virginia hadn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. The last time the territory covered by New York 23 elected a Democratic congressman was in 1870. And the incumbent who is being replaced in California 10 won her seat by beating a Republican in 1996.
In other words, the 2009 contests are a reasonably fair test of the strength and durability of the Democratic majority that Obama and his ticket-mates assembled in 2008, a majority that was only made possible by gains in hitherto Republican territory. It is also a test of the capacity of Republicans to regain turf they have lost.
Yes, the character of the individual candidates and local issues can make a difference. But the basic issues in these four contests are reasonably congruent with the national issues now being debated in Congress and this summer in town halls across the nation.
The result in Virginia is not much in doubt. Republican Bob McDonnell has campaigned on transportation, education and taxes, and holds a wide lead in polls. Democrat Creigh Deeds, though from a rural area, opted not to follow the rural strategy that elected Democrat Mark Warner governor in 2001 and senator in 2008, but instead sought to use cultural issues -- a 20-year graduate school thesis of McDonnell's helpfully unearthed by The Washington Post -- to capture the big majorities Democrats won in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in 2005, 2006 and 2008.
It hasn't worked. No one believes that a McDonnell victory will result in women being expelled from their workplaces and sent back to their ironing boards. Bigger things -- the size and scope of government -- are at stake this year.
In New Jersey, things are murkier. Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine's approval numbers are stuck around 40 percent, but he has used his wealth to pummel Republican Chris Christie with negative ads and hopes that independent Chris Daggett will steal anti-Corzine votes from the Republican. If Corzine wins because he is perceived to be the lesser of three evils, it will hardly be an endorsement of Democratic policies.
The situation in New York 23 is simply bizarre. Local Republican leaders nominated an assemblywoman who has been endorsed by the ACORN-allied Working Families Party and who backs the unions' card check bill. One of the Republicans passed over was nominated by the Conservative Party and has picked up endorsements from Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty. He has raised money on the Internet and from the anti-tax Club for Growth. He's now leading in two polls commissioned by his supporters.
All of which highlights, in exaggerated form, the distrust of tea party protesters for Republican insiders and could result in a plurality for the Democrat. As William Galston points out in his New Republic blog, during Obama's presidency voters have been growing more conservative but remain disdainful of Republicans.
The California 10 results will come in last, and just about everyone will be astonished if the Democrat, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, doesn't win in this San Francisco Bay Area district. But many things are possible in special elections.
Both parties will try to spin the results next week. But one thing seems clear. None of the Democrats seems likely to equal Obama's 2008 percentages in these states or districts. None may even come close. But Republicans may find it difficult to convert the increasing unease with Democratic policies into Republican (or conservative) victories across the board.

Hope

Virginia Governor - McDonnell vs. Deeds

Polling Data

Poll	Date	Sample	McDonnell (R)	Deeds (D)	Spread
RCP Average	10/18 - 10/27	--	54.0	40.6	McDonnell +13.4
Rasmussen Reports	10/27 - 10/27	1000 LV	54	41	McDonnell +13
SurveyUSA	10/25 - 10/26	502 LV	58	41	McDonnell +17
Washington Post	10/22 - 10/25	1206 LV	55	44	McDonnell +11
VCU	10/21 - 10/25	625 LV	54	36	McDonnell +18
Clarus Research	10/18 - 10/19	605 LV	49	41	McDonnell +8

See All Virginia Governor - McDonnell vs. Deeds Polling Data

(After October 18 partisan affiliated polls will not be added to Election 2009 RCP Poll Averages.)

 

 

Obama Makes Another Effort to Keep Virginia in Democratic Camp

By Heidi Przybyla and Julianna Goldman

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama made a push yesterday to prevent Virginia, one of his greatest electoral prizes last year, from slipping back into Republican hands. Polls indicate it may be too late.
Obama headlined a rally in Norfolk and urged voters to look beyond the surveys showing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds trailing his Republican opponent. The president said Virginians have the opportunity to “elect a man who represents a better kind of politics.”
“I don’t believe in ‘can’t,’ I don’t believe in giving up,” Obama said. He told the crowd he was “absolutely confident” that Deeds could win “if you are willing to work in this last week, if you are willing to make your voice heard in this last week.”
After becoming the first Democrat to carry Virginia in a presidential race since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Obama paid only one previous visit to the state for Deeds. By contrast, Obama campaigned for Democrat Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey in July and last week, and will return there before both states’ Nov. 3 elections.
Polls have shown a close race in New Jersey. In Virginia, Deeds has slipped 11 percentage points behind Bob McDonnell, according to an Oct. 22-25 Washington Post poll. McDonnell was backed by 55 percent in the survey, Deeds by 44 percent.
“A presidential visit isn’t going to do it,” said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.
Core Voters
“When the campaign appears completely lost, they’re bringing Obama in to try to mobilize core Democratic Party voters who should already be in the Deeds camp,” Rozell said. “Deeds should be fighting for independent voters and persuadable Republicans at this point.”
Before Obama arrived for his second and possibly his final campaign appearance on Deeds’s behalf, White House officials distanced the president from the Democrat’s campaign.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, speaking with reporters on the president’s plane, pointed to the Post poll finding that 70 percent of Virginia voters aren’t making a decision on the gubernatorial election based on Obama. That means that it’s “just not the case” that a loss by Deeds could be “somehow a referendum on Obama,” Gibbs said.
The administration is “very comfortable” with the “big level of support that the Democratic Party provided” to Deeds, Gibbs said.
Gibbs on Oct. 26 declined to endorse the way Deeds has run his campaign. “That’s not for me to pass judgment on,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama traveled to events in Florida.
Campaign Stops
Obama, who campaigned for Corzine on Oct. 21, will make one more day of stops in New Jersey on Nov. 1, Gibbs said yesterday.
Even given Virginia’s 30-year history of selecting governors from the party outside the White House, this year’s race demonstrates the limits of Obama’s electoral coattails. Much of his 2008 victory in Virginia depended on a large turnout by black voters and support from independents.
These groups are eluding Deeds, with blacks unenthused about the race and many independents moving back to the Republican column, polling shows.
“The Republicans have the upper hand,” said Rhodes Cook, publisher of a nonpartisan newsletter in Virginia.
Voter Turnout
Deeds’s challenge is turnout. In 2004, former President George W. Bush’s vote totals were almost identical to what Republican presidential candidate John McCain got in 2008. The difference last year was that Obama got about 500,000 more votes than did 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry. These were new voters, young voters, blacks and others.
“If we are able to mobilize a lot of those Democrats that voted for Obama in 2008 that are thinking about staying home, we’ll win,” said Mo Elleithee, a senior adviser to Deeds.
Obama benefited from antipathy over the Iraq war, a growing federal budget deficit and a sputtering economy, said Bill Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It’s going to be hard to replicate,” he said.
In his speech yesterday, Obama displayed much of the enthusiasm that marked his appearances on the campaign trail last year, and the crowd responded in kind. He said of Deeds, “I would have liked this guy no matter what ‘cause he’s got a funny name like ‘Barack Obama,’” a line that sparked laughter and applause.
He said Deeds “may not be perfect. My wife reminds me I’m not. She is. Just like our spouses are perfect. But we’re not. Are you looking for slick, or are you looking for somebody who’s going to be fighting for you?”
Tough Race
Obama also said, “Let’s be honest. This is going to be a tough race. We’ve got a tough economy, and even if it wasn’t a tough economy, it’s always tough in Virginia” for Democrats.
Deeds told the crowd, “Reports of my demise are much exaggerated.”
In the Post poll, Deeds trailed McDonnell 61 percent to 36 percent among independent voters who were so crucial to Obama. Independent women, who split about evenly between the two in the weeks after the publication of a controversial master’s thesis McDonnell, 54, wrote 20 years ago, now favor McDonnell 57 percent to 40 percent, the survey found.
Deeds, 51, has sought to highlight the thesis that described working women as “detrimental” to the family and also was critical of women’s rights.
According to a Public Policy Polling survey released last week, 68 percent of blacks support Deeds, with 41 percent of those voters terming themselves “very excited” about the forthcoming election. In a similar poll in late October last year, Obama had 88 percent of blacks supporting him.

More Signs of Trouble for 2010

The current state of American politics presents a paradox. On the one hand, survey after survey testifies to the rock-bottom standing of the Republican Party. Fewer Americans identify with the party than in the past, and fewer trust it to deal with the country’s problems. On the other hand, there are hard-to-ignore signs of a conservative resurgence. A 15,000 person Gallup survey out today shows that 40 percent of Americans now identify themselves as conservative (up from 37 percent at the time of Obama’s election), while only 20 percent regard themselves as liberal (down from 22 percent). Far more independents (35 percent) consider themselves conservative than was the case a year ago (only 29 percent).

These findings would be less compelling if they were not linked to conservative shifts on specific issues--but they are, and the Gallup organization enumerates a considerable list. Among them: increasing opposition to government regulation of business and gun ownership; an uneasy feeling about the influence of labor unions; increasing support for immigration restrictions and government promotion of traditional values; and diminished support for strong action on climate change. The percentage of Americans who believe that government is trying to do too much stands at its highest level (57 percent) in many years. Trust in government is near all-time lows, and Americans believe that 50 cents of every federal tax dollar is wasted--the highest level ever.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that unified Democratic government has sparked a conservative counter-mobilization. Because we cannot rerun history as a controlled experiment, we will never know whether this could have been avoided had the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats adopted a different strategy. In any case, it’s too late to reverse it.

Still, Democrats must ask themselves whether there’s anything they can do over the next year--for example, a meaningful shift toward fiscal restraint--to reduce the intensity level of the conservative assault. If not, the combination of an energized opposition and an electorate battered by high unemployment, slow growth, and the perception of out-of-control spending could set the stage for an ugly outcome. This wouldn’t mean that Republicans had regained credibility as a governing party; odds are that it will take more than two years to erase the public’s sour memories of the Republican congressional majority and George W. Bush’s presidency. It would mean that a substantial portion of the electorate wanted to send Democrats a message that they had gone too far.
The Clinton administration (in which I served) was derailed by the results of its first midterm election, and it took Democrats a decade to recover. While there are reasons to believe that Republicans won’t do as well this time, Democratic leaders should take seriously the possibility of a significant electoral reverse and act strategically to make it less likely.

Something really scary for Obama's Democrats

By Wesley Pruden

This is one Mr. Deeds who apparently isn't going to town. The collapse of the Democratic campaign for governor of Virginia speaks volumes - chapters, anyway - about what the body politic is trying to tell Barack Obama's Democrats.
They're learning, painfully, that campaigning without George W. Bush is baffling, frustrating and scary. Worse, it offers a preview of what the congressional campaigning will be like next year. One Obama doorbell ringer, working neighborhoods in Northern Virginia for Creigh Deeds, says even the promise of free pizza can't lure faithful Democrats to a rally.
For weeks, The Washington Post, the house organ of the national Democratic Party, pounded away at Bob McDonnell, the Republican nominee, for having written politically incorrect term papers in graduate school, citing his master's thesis, which decried abortion, gender-bending and radical feminism, as proof that he doesn't like women very much.
Only a month ago, Mr. Deeds, the Post's horse in the race, wouldn't talk about anything but the McDonnell graduate-school thesis - maybe a boon to master's and doctoral candidates who can't get anybody but a professor to read their wit and wisdom, but, as it turns out, a bore to voters in Virginia. The public-opinion polls continue to show Mr. McDonnell ahead, despite all the Post's ineffective deeds, and with a lengthening lead.
Now Mr. Deeds doesn't want to talk about graduate-school scribbling at all, just as leaks from the Post newsroom reveal that the newspaper has a seven-part series ready for publication to prove that Bob McDonnell has had a lifelong hostility to those of the pink persuasion. He once pulled the pigtails of a little girl in the second grade, and as a third-grader he bounced a spitball, aimed at a male pal, off the shoulder of a girl two rows over. These are no doubt serious charges, violence against (tiny) women, sexual harassment and all that, but not likely to turn the tide of a runaway that is building in Virginia.
Suddenly, the White House is treating the bereft Mr. Deeds as if he's on the fourth day of a three-day underarm deodorant pad. Bill Clinton, accustomed to speaking to cheering thousands at a hundred grand a pop, was dispatched the other night to a Deeds rally to set the throng on fire with one of his late-October stumpwallopers. The rally, such as it was, was held not at an arena or a hotel - not even a Motel 6 - but in a campaign office in the Washington suburbs. The "throng" was counted in the dozens, about the size of a PTA meeting. Not even Bubba could dispel the gloom of a wake.
"These polls are either accurate, or they're not," he said, delivering an insight worthy of a Harvard political science professor. "So are the polls right? The answer is yes, no, and maybe." But what else could he say? Dispatched for mortuary duty, Bubba could only sympathize with the preacher called on to say something nice over the grave of the town bootlegger.
Barack Obama himself is offering the mere minimum of presidential support over the past seven days of the campaign, just mailing it in (even if delivering the mail in person). He'll make one last appearance with Mr. Deeds this week in Tidewater. Meanwhile, back in Washington, the president's political aides continue to dish the obsequies over a doomed candidate while pretending to pray for a miracle. So far no one has invoked Harry Truman, patron saint of doomed candidates, but there's still a week to go.
Mr. Deeds' friends are bitter about the anonymous voices peddling the discouraging word from the White House. "These 'anonymous voices' have decided those hard-working [down-ballot candidates] are just collateral damage in their effort to tell the world that if [Mr.] Deeds doesn't win, it is because he ignored advice," Paul Goldman, a former chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, tells Politico, the Washington politics daily. "This isn't change we can believe in, but the same old, same old we voted out of office. Do they really believe their attempts to shield the president from blame is going to distract [Mr.] Obama's critics, much less change the arc of today's politics?"
Of course it won't, and that's what makes the Virginia race so scary for the president's men. Voters will use whatever club is available to "send a message," and sometimes, as any number of pols could tell you, the club is big, rough and means business.
• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

Bright Prospects in the Old Dominion

This time, Virginia's Republican campaigns look like the real thing.

By Jim Geraghty

Arlington, Va. — Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell faces a challenge pretty unfamiliar to Republicans lately: What do you do when things look good for your campaign?

The polls showing McDonnell up by double digits over Democrat Creigh Deeds are starting to come in bunches — 14 percentage points in the Virginian-Pilot poll, 12 points in the Public Policy Polling survey, a jaw-dropping 19 points in SurveyUSA. Even the closer polls put McDonnell up by a margin wider than those by which the last two Virginia governors (both Democrats) won their races. Polls on the lower-ticket races for lieutenant governor and attorney general are less frequent, but they still show the Republican candidates up by healthy margins, usually just a few points behind McDonnell’s numbers.

The biggest event of last week turned out not to be the final debate — in which Deeds had another incomprehensible failure to explain his position on a key issue — but rather the Obama White House’s strangely early effort to distance itself from a Deeds loss that it clearly expects. The series of dismissive quotes from unnamed White House officials in the Washington Post created a front-page stink bomb, offering a fascinating example of the momentum feedback loop that defines the story of some campaigns. For a campaign that leads, good news begets more good news and a bandwagon effect; for a campaign that trails, bad news generates bad coverage, which often triggers another round of bad news. Good luck persuading young Democrats to knock on doors or work phone banks next weekend, now that the entire political world knows that President Obama is writing off Deeds as a lost cause.

The White House staffers’ don’t-use-my-name trashing of the Deeds campaign is likely to have reverberations well beyond Election Day for both Obama and the Virginia Democratic party. The Post’s circulation area is a region that any Virginia Democrat must win handily to secure a statewide victory. Beyond that, some of the most competitive and important state legislative races are within the Post’s distribution area (Margi Vanderhye vs. Republican Barbara Comstock, Chuck Caputo vs. Jim LeMunyon, Stevens Miller vs. Tom Rust). An apathetic or discouraged Democrat who doesn’t show up to vote for Deeds is likely not to show up for those other races.

Any display of arrogance by Washington Democrats, oblivious to how their actions play in rural areas, is a circumstance tailor-made for David “Mudcat” Saunders, Democratic political strategist, human quote machine, and God’s gift to political reporters. Saunders often punctuates his pithy, memorable observations with four-letter words; he concluded that the White House’s criticism was bull-you-know-what, and that the leaks were chicken-you-know-what. Saunders, a John Edwards supporter, was never likely to be on the Obama White House’s Christmas-party list, but it’s rather striking to hear a blistering, profanity-laced denunciation of inexcusable incompetence and dire consequences directed at the side that has Rahm Emanuel.

Republicans in central Virginia chuckle that Deeds’s new campaign ad — in which he doesn’t say a word, while the president sings his praises — now drips with cruel irony, with the president effectively calling on Virginians to vote for the guy who his staff thinks has completely botched his campaign. Obama is scheduled to appear with Deeds in Norfolk on Tuesday, but the White House leaks ensure that the coverage will focus on whether Obama’s praise of Deeds is genuine, or whether he’s going through the motions.

Even before the White House’s front-page backstabbing of Deeds, Democrats in lower races were running away from the gubernatorial candidate. In early October, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, Steve Shannon, started talking about Virginia voters’ history of splitting their tickets, a rather clear signal that he wasn’t counting on Deeds to pull him over the top. Deeds got himself into trouble in the most recent debate by saying, “I would certainly consider opting out [of the public option on health care] if that were available to Virginia.” Afterwards, he insisted that didn’t mean he was opposed to the public option. It didn’t take long before the Democrats’ candidate for lieutenant governor, Jody Wagner, pledged she would fight any effort to opt out of the public option.

While a lot of the post-election discussion of the race is likely to focus on Obama, it may be that the Democrats were just unlucky enough to get a lousy batch of candidates this year. Deeds began the campaign with the insipid slogan “This is Deeds country”; he repeatedly refused to offer a detailed plan on transportation; and he got visibly flustered when reporters asked him some fairly simple questions about his positions on tax increases and the public option. Shannon made a painful rookie mistake in his debate with Republican Ken Cuccinelli, when Cuccinelli asked him the basic question: How many divisions are there in the attorney general’s office, and what do they do? Shannon immediately insisted he had more to say about a previous question, and offered an answer longer and more meandering than the Mississippi River, insisting that “arcane questions” about “details about the bureaucracy” weren’t what mattered in the race. The cavalcade of cringe-worthy evasions became a YouTube classic.

However, a Virginia Republican familiar with the dynamics of both the statewide and the local races notes that Democrats’ missteps are only half the story, at most: “It’s important to remember we haven't won anything yet,” this Republican cautions. “But when the history of this race is written, it might be tempting for some to conclude that . . . the Democrats were saddled with a poor candidate, a poor campaign and bad political headwinds. While all of that is true and has been a major factor, what should not be overlooked is how excellent Bob McDonnell is as a candidate and what a top-flight team he assembled — Ed Gillespie, Phil Cox, Tucker Martin, and the rest. So far they have displayed a keen ability to know what do to and when to do it — as well as the judgment to know when not to do things.”

There has also been a thoroughly uncharacteristic level of cooperation among the national, state, and local Republican parties. The Republican National Committee has transferred $300,000 to Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, attorney-general candidate Ken Cuccinelli, and House Speaker Bill Howell, bringing total RNC spending in Virginia to nearly $8 million.

Another interesting point to watch is how effective the GOP’s get-out-the-vote efforts will prove to be. Some Virginia Republicans grouse that they heard happy talk in the run-up to the elections in 2005, 2006, and 2008, prior to the defeats of gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore, Sen. George Allen, and presidential candidate John McCain. This year’s turnout operations are off the charts compared to previous years. One Virginia Republican notes, “As of two months ago, Republicans had already knocked on more doors and made more phone calls — in other words, direct voter contacts — than ever before in Virginia in one election cycle, and that includes presidential election years. In the end, we will probably more than double the output of any previous cycle. The level of enthusiasm and volunteers is unprecedented in Virginia gubernatorial elections. No one can recall such excitement behind a candidate for governor since George Allen in 1993. This is certainly on that level, which is really saying something.”

Sixteen years ago, George Allen crushed the heavily favored Democrat Mary Sue Terry, 58 percent to 41 percent. A win on that scale this year would leave heaps of credit to go around to the GOP at each level; while the post-election banquet for Democrats at the local, state, and national levels would entail a veritable slaughter of crows.

—Jim Geraghty writes the Campaign Spot on NRO.

Democratic Party encounters 'Obama hangover' in state, local elections

The president hits the campaign trail on behalf of Democrats, but the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture.

President Obama appears at a campaign rally for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, left. (Mel Evans / Associated Press / October 21, 2009) Reporting from Kennett Square, Pa. - As he is quick to point out, President Obama is presiding over two wars, a sour economy and an epic fight to rework the nation's healthcare system. Now tack on a trio of state and local political races. With an off-year election fast approaching, Obama is stepping up his commitment to Democratic candidates in hopes that an infusion of campaign charisma might pump up turnout. What the party is finding, though, is that the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture. Some Democratic candidates running for local office around the country call the phenomenon the "Obama hangover." It is proving tougher to recruit volunteers and get people to vote. "It's like the morning after the party," Michael McGann, a Democrat running for clerk of courts in the Philadelphia suburbs, said in an interview. "The party was wonderful and exciting. The day after it's like, 'Gee, I don't want to do that again for a while.' " Combating the malaise, Obama is trying to galvanize voters by reminding them of the "fired up, ready to go" fervor that made last year's race riveting political theater. A television ad for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds released Wednesday showcases Obama, who is heard using some of the same rhetorical lines that helped get him elected: "Last year, Virginia, you helped lead a movement. . . . I need every one of you to get fired up once again." Are voters buying it? Obama's party has a hard sell. Apart from Virginia, Democratic candidates are trying to scratch out victories in the New Jersey governor's race and in a congressional race in upstate New York's 23rd District. In New Jersey, the election is in some measure a referendum on the Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine, who has been in office nearly four years. Local issues loom large in New Jersey. A recent poll by Monmouth University showed that people see property taxes as the dominant issue, trumping the economy and healthcare. Asked whether a campaign appearance by Obama on behalf of Corzine would affect their vote, 73% said no. Conditions look even tougher for Democrats in Virginia. A recent survey by Public Policy Polling showed Deeds trailing Republican Bob McDonnell by 12 points. Obama's approval rating among white Virginia voters has slipped 3 points since the 2008 election, and, compounding the problem, black voters are not as excited about Deeds as they were about Obama, said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a polling firm. Worse for the Democrats, if any one constituency is energized this season it's conservatives, who are angry about rising deficits, some pollsters said. "There's real anger on the right, and that anger isn't matched by enthusiasm on the left," said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. "So the emotion is on the side of the far right. And voting has become very emotional." A clean sweep by Democrats looks unattainable. So for Obama, the question is how much to invest in what could turn out to be losing candidacies. Aware of the risks, Obama's political advisors have privately discussed just how much of a time commitment he should make. Too much involvement could distract the White House from its chief immediate goals: passing a healthcare bill and devising a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. But at the same time, Obama has decided not to sit it out. "There's a balancing act here where they're trying to make sure they're responsive to the needs and wants of the campaigns, and at the same time recognize the limits of their usefulness," said Jim Margolis, who was a senior advisor to Obama's presidential campaign. "If I were advising him, I would advise him not to set up campaigns in New Jersey and Virginia as we're trying to get healthcare done and with all these major initiatives." Obama looks to be picking his spots. In between strategy meetings on Afghanistan, the president is headlining rallies and fundraising events, cutting television ads and lending his name to campaign mailings. Obama helped raise money Tuesday for Bill Owens, the Democrat running for the congressional seat in New York. A day later, he spoke to 3,500 people at a rally in New Jersey for Corzine. An awkward dance has played out between Deeds and the White House. At times Deeds seemed to be tracking Obama's softening approval ratings. Given the chance to proclaim himself an "Obama Democrat" at a debate last month, Deeds took a pass. Senior White House aides, for their part, said they were put off by the Deeds campaign and how it refused early offers of help. Obama hasn't blanketed Virginia on Deeds' behalf, but he is targeting two important loyal constituencies: black and younger voters. He will appear at a Tuesday rally at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, a city whose population is 44% black, more than twice the representation statewide. Both parties are readying talking points depending on the outcome. Inside the White House, aides envision a scenario in which Deeds loses in Virginia and Corzine wins in New Jersey. Should the Democrats prevail in New York, the White House would then label that race the "tie-breaker." In this formulation, the White House would assert that the Democrats carried the day. Republicans are also refining their message should they prevail Nov. 3. The party is prepared to paint GOP victories as a grim verdict on Obama's presidency -- a foreshadow of the crucial midterm elections next year. "If the Democrats lose in Virginia, it is first and foremost a referendum on President Obama and a harbinger of bad things to come in the midterms," said Mark Corallo, a Republican strategist. One thing that Obama's strategy shows is a willingness to gamble. A safe course might be for Obama to offer merely token assistance. But as he did in his futile effort to capture the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, Obama is demonstrating he's not deterred by an uncertain outcome. Mark Fabiani, who was an aide to former Vice President Al Gore, said: "He's going all in. Several candidates he's campaigning for could be considered underdogs, and that hasn't stopped him." peter.nicholas@latimes.com Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

Criticism by Obama Aides Exasperates Virginia Democrats

Deeds says he was unaware of conflicts over race strategy

Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, shown at a recent debate, said Friday that he was puzzled by the comments from unnamed Obama officials. (Don Petersen/associated Press)

By Rosalind S. Helderman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Virginia Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds said Friday that he was confused and frustrated by statements from senior aides to President Obama that Deeds had rejected their advice in running his campaign for governor as some state party activists denounced what they saw as a betrayal by advisers to a president they helped elect a year ago.

Deeds said he was puzzled by the comments from unnamed Obama administration officials who said that he had virtually no chance to defeat Republican Robert F. McDonnell and that such a loss would reflect on Deeds's failings rather than on Obama's popularity.
They said that Deeds, who has been trailing in the polls, coordinated poorly with the White House and failed to adequately reach out to the constituencies that helped Obama become the first Democrat in 40 years to win Virginia.
"It is frustrating to read, because that's not what we've been hearing from anybody over there," Deeds said. "I'm just not sure where the talk is coming from. It just doesn't make sense. . . . There's been no disagreements between us of which I'm aware."
The Democratic National Committee, under the leadership of Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), has invested heavily in the race, and Obama will rally with Deeds in Norfolk on Tuesday.
Kaine called the remarks "not helpful."
"You don't do this for as long as we've done it and for as long as Creigh's done it without having your own internal sense of having good days and bad days," he said.

Deeds said his effort had seen a surge of volunteers Friday. Activists at an afternoon rally with Sen. James Webb (D) in Alexandria said they were eager to prove anonymous naysayers wrong, even those from their party's top echelon.
But some Democrats also expressed deep worry that the public disagreement with Washington could hurt efforts to turn out the Democratic base, which polls have shown lacks enthusiasm for Deeds, and could damage Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor, attorney general and the House of Delegates.
"When it comes out of the White House, this Monday morning quarterbacking stuff before the election even happens, it's devastating to the whole ticket," said David "Mudcat" Saunders, a political strategist who worked to elect now-U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) governor in 2001 and Webb to the U.S. Senate in 2006. "I think Obama ought to find who did this to us, and I think he ought to fire 'em. It's totally without character."
Paul Goldman, a Richmond activist and former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, called the tactics "bush league," an attempt to send a message to Democrats about crossing the White House without regard to the damage it might cause the state party and its candidates.
"It's take-no-prisoners," he said. "It's exactly the kind of thing we voted out of office."

Republicans largely sat back, content to let Democrats make the critique of Deeds's effort that they have been advancing for weeks: that the campaign has relied too heavily on negative attacks against McDonnell, particularly over his controversial 1989 master's thesis and his strong opposition to abortion.

Campaigning at a flower shop in Arlington County, McDonnell said he's not taking the race for granted. "The mission is to win on Election Day and not to feel good 10 days out," he said.
McDonnell sidestepped the issue of whether Obama has hurt Deeds in Virginia but argued, as he has for weeks, that the policies of the Democratic-led Congress have alienated voters.
Deeds made a late pivot Friday to economic issues, detouring from his campaign schedule to meet with workers at an International Paper mill in Franklin city that company officials announced Thursday will be closing, resulting in the loss of 1,100 jobs. In a late-afternoon call with reporters, Deeds called for providing new emergency benefits in areas such as Franklin that experience a 2 percent jump in unemployment in a month.
He said those benefits should include a $100 increase in weekly unemployment benefits and access to Medicaid or emergency loans for laid-off workers to buy health insurance. He also called on the General Assembly to accept $125 million in federal stimulus funds for unemployment benefits, aid that Republicans rejected during the last legislative session.
Republicans, including McDonnell, argued that the stimulus money came with unacceptable federal mandates and that accepting it would have required expanding unemployment benefits in a way that would raise costs for businesses when the federal aid ran out.
The debate was the subject of a multimillion-dollar ad campaign funded by the Democratic Governors Association in the spring, when Deeds was engaged in a three-way primary race for the Democratic nomination, and he has been widely criticized by Democrats for not making it more central to his general-election effort since then.

Tucker Martin, a spokesman for McDonnell, accused Deeds of playing politics with the plant closure and said Deeds would raise taxes, which would hurt workers.
Staff writers Amy Gardner and Anita Kumar contributed to this report.

Will the Buckeye State Swing Back to the GOP in 2010?

By Stuart Rothenberg

Get out your map and draw a big fat bull's-eye on Ohio. The state looks to be a test of whether the GOP can bounce back strongly after two terrible election cycles, and that makes it a possible bellwether of what's going on nationally.
Not quite three years ago, a Democratic wave in Ohio swept Republicans out of all but one of the state's top offices. Then-Rep. Ted Strickland won the governorship, bringing former state Attorney General Lee Fisher along with him as lieutenant governor. Richard Cordray won the state treasurer's race, Marc Dann was elected attorney general and Jennifer Brunner was elected secretary of state.

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The lone Republican elected statewide, by the narrowest of margins, was Mary Taylor. Taylor, 43, won election as state auditor with 51 percent, a margin of fewer than 50,000 votes out of more than 3.8 million cast.
Taylor's victory was all the more surprising given that her party's nominee for governor, Ken Blackwell, drew just 37 percent - more than 460,000 fewer votes than Taylor. Then-Sen. Mike DeWine (R) drew just 44 percent in his unsuccessful bid for re-election.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that after controlling the state for years, the Ohio GOP got slaughtered in 2006 and again in 2008. In addition to losing the state's top offices, the party lost a U.S. Senator, four U.S. House seats and its majority in the Ohio House of Representatives over the past four years.
But timing is everything in politics, and Ohio once again looks like a barnburner in next year's midterm elections.
Strickland's opponent in his race for re-election will be former Rep. John Kasich (R), 57, a high-energy populist conservative who will have to defend himself against Democratic attacks that he was a managing director at Lehman Brothers, the financial services firm that declared bankruptcy in 2008 and helped trigger the nation's financial crisis.
Strickland, 68, starts as the favorite in the race, though his job approval numbers aren't as stratospheric as they once were.
The race is worth watching not only because of the state's size and reputation as a swing state, but also because Ohio's governor is one of three statewide officeholders on the state Reapportionment Board, which draws the state legislative districts after the next census. Plus, if Kasich wins, he could have a hand in deciding who carries Ohio in the 2012 GOP presidential primary.
Republican Taylor is one of the other members of the Reapportionment Board, and she, too, will have a fight on her hands. To challenge her, state Democrats have recruited Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper, 37, a former Cincinnati city councilman.
A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, he is the son of former Procter & Gamble CEO John Pepper. Most observers believe that Taylor, who served in the state Legislature and is a certified public accountant, will begin the race with a slight advantage, but this no slam-dunk for her.
The third vote on the Reapportionment Board belongs to Ohio's secretary of state. But the incumbent, Brunner, is running against Fisher for the open-seat Democratic Senate nomination. Party insiders have urged Brunner to drop her Senate bid, and she is likely to come under continued pressure to do so after her third-quarter fundraising was so weak. But she recently reiterated her intention to stay in the race.
Brunner's open seat looks to be a battle between state House Minority Leader Jennifer Garrison, 47, a Democrat from Marietta, and Republican state Sen. Jon Husted, 42, a former Speaker of the Ohio House. Democratic insiders had expected Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown (D) to be their party's nominee, but she unexpectedly dropped out of the race earlier this month.
The two other statewide contests are also interesting, though for different reasons.
DeWine is now running for one of his old jobs - attorney general. The post is currently held by Cordray, 50, who won a special election to fill the vacant office after Dann was forced to resign after becoming embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal.
In the state treasurer's race, Kevin Boyce (D), 38, who was selected by Strickland to fill the post when Cordray become attorney general, faces state Rep. Josh Mandel (R).
Boyce, who is black, previously served on the Columbus City Council. Mandel, who is Jewish, was undergraduate student body president at Ohio State University and served two tours of duty in Iraq as a member of the Marines. Mandel, 32, represents a normally Democratic Cuyahoga County (Cleveland)-based legislative district in the state House.
Given the youth of many of the statewide hopefuls (five are under 45), some of the winners are likely to show up in future gubernatorial and Senate races.
Next year's Senate race is also crucial. With moderate Republican George Voinovich retiring, a Democratic win by either Fisher or Brunner would put another liberal Democrat in the Senate, while a victory by former Rep. Rob Portman (R) would confirm that the state had swung back to its competitive norm.
Two House seats, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy's Columbus-based 15th district and Rep. Steve Driehaus' Cincinnati-based 1st, will also be at risk. Republicans need to win at least one, and possibly both, to have a chance to have the kind of banner year that they are hoping for.

Stuart Rothenberg is the editor of the The Rothenberg Political Report, and a regular columnist for Roll Call Newspaper.

Corzine, N.J. Challengers Feud Over Taxes, Waste in Last Debate

By Terrence Dopp

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine said he’ll halt growth of the state’s property taxes if re-elected, while Republican challenger Christopher Christie said he would cut taxes across the board, as the two battled in a last debate.
The candidates squared off in a 60-minute debate broadcast on National Public Radio affiliates in Newark and in the Philadelphia region covering southern New Jersey. Independent Christopher Daggett, who has drawn voters from the Republican in polls, said he would cut the state’s property and income taxes by 25 percent and place tighter caps on local spending growth.
Corzine, 62, and Christie are neck-and-neck less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 election. Corzine is the first U.S. governor to face re-election since the recession. Christie has blamed the incumbent for the state’s 9.8 percent unemployment rate and highest-in-the-nation property taxes.
“I think we’ll be able to get very close to zero growth” in property taxes with an economic recovery, the governor said, adding that he would reinstate property-tax relief programs cut amid the recession. “We didn’t get here in four years. It took us a long time.”
The candidates faced off in a toned-down debate that also focused on government ethics, school construction and health care. The session marked the final time all three will share a stage with less than two weeks remaining in the campaign.
Real estate levies, which averaged about $7,000 last year, and how to curb growth in the locally levied tax have been a perennial issue in state politics. Corzine also said Christie’s anti-abortion stance is out of line with most New Jerseyans.
Campaign Spending
Corzine, a former co-chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co., has spent at least $16.8 million on the race, more than triple Christie’s $5.4 million, according to campaign finance data released Oct. 7. Daggett, 59, has spent about $1 million.
Christie, who is accepting public matching funds, has said he expected to be outspent by the governor, who isn’t taking taxpayer funds. The Republican is limited under state public- finance laws to $10.9 million for the campaign.
Until this month, Corzine trailed Christie in polls. The governor caught up to Christie, 47, after running ads attacking the Republican’s support for ending state-mandated health- insurance coverage and his links as a fundraiser for former President George W. Bush.
The spots also questioned Christie’s driving record following a 2002 traffic accident in which he turned the wrong way down a one-way street, hit a motorcyclist and wasn’t issued a ticket, and questioned his ethics for giving a loan to an aide who worked for him when he was U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
Poll Results
Corzine led Christie, 39 percent to 36 percent, in a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released yesterday. The results are within the survey’s error margin of 4.1 percentage points. Daggett, 59, garnered 20 percent in the survey of 583 likely voters.
In a Quinnipiac University poll released July 14, Christie led Corzine 47 percent to 38 percent when Daggett was included. The independent received 8 percent in that tally.
In their first debate Oct. 1, Corzine said he wouldn’t rule out tax increases as a “last resort” to balance the budget and proposed encouraging towns and cities to merge and share services to control property taxes. Christie said he would move future state workers, excluding police officers, into 401(k)- style retirement plans and reduce overtime.
Christie has called for as much as $6 billion in spending cuts to balance the budget, saying he’s the only candidate who wouldn’t raise taxes. Daggett has called for extending the state’s 7 percent sales tax to professional services such as fees charged by lawyers, accountants and architects.
Christie Slips
“While Jon Corzine has made up a lot of ground in all of the polls since last summer, he has not done it by increasing his support,” said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers- Eagleton Poll and a professor of political science at Rutgers University, which in its poll said taxes top voters’ issue lists. “Instead, Christopher Christie has lost support.”
A defeat for Corzine would be only the second for an incumbent New Jersey governor since 1947 in a general election. Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in New Jersey since 1997, when Christine Todd Whitman defeated Democrat James McGreevey to win a second term as governor.
Daggett has positioned himself as a change agent unencumbered by partisan baggage. His sales-tax proposal would raise about $4 billion by extending the state’s 7 percent sales tax to fees charged for services.
‘Underdog, Underfunded’
“Democrats and Republicans made a mess of this state, and neither of my opponents has any plan to deal with it,” Daggett said. “Our underdog, underfunded campaign promised to tell you the truth and we’ve done it.”
Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 700,000 voters in New Jersey, while about 46 percent of the 5.2 million registered voters are unaffiliated, according to state Division of Elections data released this month.
The victor in the gubernatorial campaign will inherit a budget deficit of as much as $8 billion in the next fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
New Jersey has the third-highest debt load after California and New York, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The company on Aug. 3 cut its ratings outlook to negative from stable on $31 billion in New Jersey debt, citing declining tax revenue because of the U.S. recession.
To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Trenton, New Jersey, at tdopp@bloomberg.net.