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December 03, 2008
Obama's Dubious Coattails?
Normally, I'd be suspicious of pundit attempts to seek trends out of a single race. But when Michael Barone is the one making the point, it's worth a read, and some consideration.
As the analysts at NBC News suggest, Obama coattails that were helpful to many newly elected Democrats in the South in November 2008 may not be so helpful to them in 2010 and any special elections that occur between now and then.In 2010 and 2012, turnout for Obama and the Democrats will depend less on who Obama is and what he represents, and more on what he and Congressional Democrats have accomplished while in office and whether the economy rebounds or falls further into stagnation.That suggests another hypothesis: that the Obama turnout effort among blacks may not be replicable. You can only vote to elect the first black president once.
I expect the Democrats will lose a few Congressional seats in 2010. President Bush and the Republicans were able to break historical norms and gain seats in 2002, but that was largely a fluke based on an increased focus on national security following the 9/11 attacks and GOP anger over the defection of Senator Jim Jeffords. The behavior of the Obama administration will certainly affect those elections, but history does not favor the Democrats in two years. Making things worse for the Dems is the leaders of the two legislative bodies - Pelosi and Reid were able to drive Congressional approval ratings into the single digits. That does not bode well for their future success.
Still, Obama is a smart guy so it should be interesting to see how the 2010 elections affect his style of governance.
Posted by slublog at December 3, 2008 11:24 PM
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