| Today we will hear, obsessively on MSNBC and Fox, about three elections and one or two ballot measures. The elections are the Governors races in New Jersey and Virginia and the wild and wacky race in the NY 23rd. The ballot initiatives are 1 in Maine and 71 in Washington State both of which deal with removing rights granted by the legislature to gay citizens. In Maine it is full marriage rights, in Washington it is civil union which would have full marriage rights in all but name.
One thing, which almost none of the coverage is going to tell you, is how incredibly low the turn out for elections in off year cycles are. In off year elections, depending on the State turn out can run between 35% and 50% of the registered voters. Which means it is a the hardest of hard core on both sides and those folks like the Dog and his family who take this voting thing as a minimum requirement for calling yourself a citizen.
Tonight there will be lots of prognostication about the meaning of the election in New Jersey, but this big State governors race might be determined by as little as 33% of the registered voters, which the percent that voted in 2007 the last off year election. This is the problem with trying to read anything into these elections. First off there are not enough of them to give you a real sample size and second they are not like elections held on Congressional or Presidential cycle years.
This will not prevent everyone and their cousin from trying. After all the cable networks have time slots to fill. Add to it the fact that Fox and MSNBC made record profits from the presidential election last year, there is no chance they will not be pounding this like a drum. But to quote the Bard "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
What will we actually learn from the vote totals tonight? We will find out if the forces of intolerance were able to railroad the people of Maine into institutionalizing bigotry. If the money and the campaign, which were successful in California, are able to replicate their nefarious work, we will know we cannot fight these issues in off years. It will be a set back for the gay citizens of Maine, but it will not be a death knell for full rights. It will just make it clear the Supreme Court is the place where we must fight and win against the same kind of bigotry, which prevented interracial couples from marrying prior to the Loving decision.
If, as it seems likely, the Republicans take the Governorship in Virginia, we will have re-learned the lesson that a crappy campaign looses. It will have nothing to say about the mode of the nation in regards to the President or the Democrats. Be sure to point this out at length to anyone who says differently. It will also show that in order to win, a Republican needed to stay away from the Culture War rhetoric, which their base is forcing to supremacy. If the Right wants to have Virginia be a template for the 2010 election that is fine with the Dog, it requires a crappy Democratic campaign and a betrayal of their base to win.
In the Garden State no matter who wins what we will learn is that a third party candidate is always a spoiler for someone. The Dog is moderately confident is predicting the incumbent Governor Jon Corzine will squeak this one out. Democrats in New Jersey often flirt with the Republicans but almost always come home to the party at the polls.
Even if the rotund Chris Chirstie does manage to take the Governorship, it will not be from being a Hard Right ideologue. He has turned down chances for the unemployed blogger Mrs. Palin to come and whip up the base for him. Why did he do this? Because even a former Bush Administration official knows, the crazy base of his party will alienate the Independent voters he has to have to win this race.
What will we learn in the 23rd District of New York? We will lean the levels to which the reminder of the non-insane part of the Republican Party in that district is willing to ride the corpse of a dead elephant in the name of loyalty. The Far Out Right (as Chris Kofinis calls them) have decided they will try to enforce purity to the level of turning a Republican candidate who could easily win the district to a Democrat. This is perhaps the only election today that might tell us something about the 2010 election. It is not that it will tell us anything about outcome, with the strange three way dynamics becoming a two way race with a Republican endorsing a Democrat this is so far to the right side of the distribution curve as to be unique. No, it will tell us something about what the Republican Party will do in terms of nomination or even fracturing during the next election cycle.
If Doug Hoffman wins the Far Right wing of the Republicans Party will put the Stalinist purge machine into overdrive. There will be no support for those who do not toe the line on all of their discredited and unpopular ideas anywhere in the nation. The extinction of the Republican moderate will be completed in the next cycle and the fate of the GOP as a regional Party, which cannot affect national trends, will be sealed. As a life-long Democrat and a partisan, the Dog could not be happier about this. As a citizen who believes we need loyal opposition to make our system of checks and balances work, this is would be worrying, but since the Republicans are doing it to themselves, it is not for the Dog to interfere.
Overall, tonight we will learn who is elected, who was successful in their campaigns and who failed. What will we not learn is anything about the President being in good or bad shape. These will be data points that may or may not turn into trends, but to read any kind of massive or even slight shift into these small and varied races is to overreach to the extent that only American political reporting can do.
Keep your heads no matter what happens tonight folks. The fight has not ended, we have not completely won nor completely lost and the issues of 2010 will be fought in 2010 not an off year, low turn out election cycle.
The floor is yours.
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