Scott Spiegel

Since the clever acronym for Democrats’ new election fund accountability scheme is DISCLOSE, perhaps they could disclose for the American people the true intention of the bill and the consequences it will have on free speech and political advocacy during election cycles.

The Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act was proposed in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in January, which slapped down the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act’s prohibition of corporate sponsorship of electioneering communications 60 days before a general election or 30 days before a primary.

The Democracy, etc. Act—alternately referred to by insiders as DISCLOSE, H.R. 5175, McCain-Feingold Part II, ABRIDGE, SQUELCH, and SUFFOCATE—would ban certain parties, such as federal contractors with more than a specified dollar amount in contracts, from producing any political communications right before elections, and would impose burdensome “transparency” requirements on others.  For-profit and nonprofit corporations would be regulated under the law, but unions would be exempted from it—a fact that absolutely coincidentally happens to disadvantage Republicans and benefit Democrats.

The act would also require the top five corporate sponsors of any ad to declare themselves at the end of the ad—which means that in addition to hearing politicians recite, “My name is Joe Windbag, and I approve this message,” we’d have to hear, “My name is Joe Moneybags, and I’m CEO of Megalopolis Corporation, and I approve this message,” “My name is…” etc.  Given that most political ads are only 30 seconds long, commercials under DISCLOSE will inevitably start to resemble that Eminem song where he raps over and over, “My name is… My name is…”

New York Senator Charles Schumer and Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen are the proud sponsors of this bill.

Upon its unveiling, Schumer trumpeted that the bill’s “deterrent effect should not be underestimated.”

Van Hollen, who just so happens to be the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, claims that the bill is necessary because it will prevent foreign entities from influencing U.S. elections via shadowy front groups.

This is a remarkable claim for a Democrat to make, given that: (1) Citizens United did not, as claimed by our Fabricator-in-Chief at his State of the Union Address, “open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections”—it did not even alter the existing ban on election-related contributions from foreign nationals or corporations; and (2) a good chunk of Obama’s presidential election fund was made up of overseas donors whom Obama, unlike John McCain and Hillary Clinton, never required to reveal their identities or associations for the public.

In the wake of pressure from the National Rifle Association, who wanted an exemption from the proposed regulations and threatened to campaign against midterm election candidates who voted for the act, Democrats arbitrarily refashioned the legislation to exclude groups that had at least one million members, had been around for 10 years, had membership in all 50 states, and received no more than 15% of their funding from corporations.  Only the NRA qualified under these guidelines.  (An aide leaked that earlier language, rejected as too obvious, would have offered a carve-out for any organization that had been around for at least 139 years, boasted national membership of at least 3.5 million, counted Ulysses S. Grant and Charlton Heston among its former presidents, and sported an eagle atop two crossed rifles as its logo.)

Due to bipartisan outrage over the narrowly tailored exception for the NRA, last week the bill’s sponsors lowered the membership threshold criterion to 500,000, which allowed groups such as the AARP and the Humane Society into the Mile High Club.

Realizing that there were still not enough votes for the act, on Thursday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tabled the bill, though Van Hollen this week announced that House Democrats’ efforts to reverse Citizens United were not over.  The White House chimed in by giving the bill a fresh endorsement on Monday.

Yesterday, Van Hollen released hilarious poll results claiming that 87% of Republican voters and 90% of Democratic voters supported the bill.  The only thing Republican and Democratic voters agree on in such overwhelming numbers is that Republican and Democratic voters don’t agree on anything that strongly.

DISCLOSE went to the Rules committee today, and a vote may come as early as tomorrow.

Democrats are dying to shove this monstrosity through Congress well before the November elections, to prohibit right-leaning groups from facilitating the expected Democratic massacre.  Their maneuver recalls the proposal Senate Democrats floated to get rid of the filibuster earlier this year, when they thought they couldn’t pass their health care bill with it in place.  In a letter co-written with Harry Reid, Schumer admits that, “We commit to working tirelessly for Senate consideration of the House-passed bill so it can be signed by the President in time to take effect for the 2010 elections.”

The Supreme Court may well overturn this law, in keeping with the spirit of their Citizens United decision, but by that point the November midterm elections will be long gone.

What all of this proves is that, as usual, Democrats never think ahead to what might happen as a consequence of the crummy legislation they pass for short-term political gain, and whether it might come back to cause them long-term political grief—to say nothing of its constitutionality or its utility in preserving the nation’s ideals.  I don’t know, I think a filibuster might come in pretty handy after two waves of Republicans sweeping Congressional elections in 2010 and 2012—eh, House Minority Leader Pelosi?

In addition to being immoral calculators who would throw their grandmothers under the bus for political power, Democrats are shortsighted and lunk-headed when it comes to enacting their schemes.  If they get away with DISCLOSE, it will only be because of the moral cowardice and incompetence of Republicans in failing to oppose them.



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President Obama’s strategy for helping fellow Democrats win in the 2010 midterm elections is apparently to campaign against George W. Bush.

At a fundraiser two weeks ago, Obama declared of Republicans’ desire to take back leadership of Congress, “After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back.  No!  You can’t drive.  We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch.  We just got the car out.”

Emory University political science professor Merle Black recently characterized voters’ likely reaction to Obama’s emerging campaign strategy: “If you’re the leader of a large corporation and you’re in power for a year and a half and you start off a meeting with your shareholders by blaming your predecessor, that wouldn’t go over very well.”

Now, why do you suppose Obama wouldn’t have any idea how the leader of a corporation should behave?  Wait—it’s on the tip of my tongue…  I know!  Do community organizers have actual responsibilities?

Perhaps at one point Obama intended to assist other Democrats by trumpeting his own record in office, a gambit that was based on the assumption he would whisk Senators and Representatives into power via the same sweeping electoral coattails he possessed before people saw him actually doing something besides campaigning.

The results over the past six months of Democratic candidates’ riding Obama’s gravy train seem to have dissuaded him of the wisdom of that approach.

In last November’s off-year gubernatorial elections, Obama campaigned vociferously for John Corzine in New Jersey and Creigh Deeds in Virginia, including making multiple appearances with them at campaign rallies, and failed to help either one get elected—and possibly hurt both.

Ditto for The Grim Reaper’s efforts to facilitate the election of Martha Coakley to Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts to save the 60th Senate vote for his signature health care bill.

Three weeks ago, incumbent Republican Senator from Utah Bob Bennett, who voted for the unpopular bank bailout that Bush instituted and Obama supported, failed to win his party’s primary nomination at the state GOP convention.

Two weeks ago, 14-term incumbent Democratic Representative from West Virginia Alan Mollohan, who voted for ObamaCare and was chastised by his Democratic opponent for having done so, lost his party’s primary election.

In contrast to the efforts he made for Corzine, Deeds, and Coakley, Obama tried just tossing his endorsement to Arlen Specter in Specter’s primary bid, and letting grassroots group Organizing for America do the dirty work of campaigning for Specter, but that didn’t help, either.

Pennsylvania Democrat Mark Critz ran for John Murtha’s seat on a platform opposing the following: ObamaCare, cap-and-trade, a national sales tax similar to Obama’s proposed Value Added Tax, gun control, abortion, and efforts to derail Arizona’s immigration law—i.e., what one might term the “Polar Opposite of Obama Platform”—and beat a similarly conservative Republican last week in a district with twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans.

Last Saturday, Republican Charles Djou won a vacant House seat by running on an explicitly anti-Obama, pro-Tea Party platform in a special election in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District—the district where Obama grew up—thus becoming the first Republican Representative from Hawaii in almost 20 years.

Meanwhile, many Congressmen up for reelection this November seem less than thrilled at the prospect of a visit from Barack “Kiss of Death” Obama.

In a subtly titled article called “Freshmen Run Away From Obama,” CQ Politics cites freshman Pennsylvania Representative Kathy Dahlkemper: “‘You have to be an independent, no matter what…’  Dahlkemper said that while she would be ‘very happy to welcome’ Obama to her district, she didn’t know how much of a help or a hindrance he would be.  ‘I just think we don’t quite know yet where his popularity is…  I’m much less concerned about who’s going to come in and campaign for me.’”

In everyday language, this political-speak translates as, “Obama had better stay the hell away from my district this year.”

CQ Politics also quotes freshman Colorado Representative Betsey Markey as saying that “she didn’t think it would make much difference either way if the president stumped in her district.  ‘It’s always an honor when the president makes an offer to visit.  But this is a Colorado race.’”  In normal people-talk, this means “Please, Obama, I’m begging you—don’t put on your fake cowboy hat and visit the Rocky Mountains this fall.”

Thus, the growing preference among candidates of both parties who actually face voters this fall seems to be to campaign, not against George Bush, but against Barack Obama.

This whole turn of events leads me to the seemingly absurd but actually logical conclusion that Obama’s best hope in 2012 is to find a way to run against… the first term of President Obama.  Why not?  It sort of worked for Clinton in 1996.

At least when Obama throws himself under the bus, he’ll be able to do it gently.

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Senator Arlen Specter was a registered Democrat in Pennsylvania from the age of 21 to 35.  Like any sensible person, he became a Republican in his 30s, even though he switched parties not so much to suit his changing political philosophy as to be able to challenge an incumbent Democrat for the job of district attorney in Philadelphia in 1965.

A funny thing happened when Senator Specter turned 79 last year: he decided that his 21- to 35-year-old political self had been wiser than his 35- to 79-year-old self.  (Given his voting record for most of his Senate career, it’s hard to quibble with this point.)

Arlen Spectacle (as Mark Levin calls him) categorically stated in March 2009, “To eliminate any doubt, I am a Republican, and I am running for reelection in 2010 as a Republican on the Republican ticket.”  A month later, after genuine conservative Pat Toomey had thrown his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination, Specter announced that, to eliminate any doubt, he was a Democrat, and was running for reelection in 2010 as a Democrat on the Democratic ticket.

Specter inarguably changed parties to avoid a repeat of his close race in 2004 with Toomey, whom Specter beat with a measly 51% of the vote, despite the advantages of incumbency and overwhelming support from the national and state party establishments, including President George W. Bush and fellow Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.  As early as April 2009, just three months into Obama’s presidency, Specter must have sensed that the burgeoning anti-incumbent mood would smother him by the 2010 primaries, and so he deserted the GOP.

Arlen “Act Like a Lady” Specter claims he didn’t leave the party—the party left him.

It’s funny how the exact same thing recently occurred to that paragon of political integrity, Charlie “Lincoln” Crist of Florida, who just happened to be down in the polls to Marco Rubio before he decided his newly evolving political ideology compelled him to become an Independent.

And it’s a bit funny that Specter used the exact same line to explain his own party-hopping move back in 1965.  As the Boston Herald quoted him on the campaign trail, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party…  The party left me.”

The Senator’s party affiliation isn’t the only thing he’s flip-flopped on.  In May 2009, The Sphincter (Monica Crowley’s nickname for him, not mine—honest!) was asked whether he supported a government-run public option in Congress’s health care overhaul bill, and insisted he did not.  By July, when it looked as though momentum were on the side of the public option, he was for it.

Specter voted in favor of pro-union leadership card check legislation in 2007; then announced he was against it in 2009; then, after switching parties, announced he was in favor of it again.

The Philadelphia Enquirer’s Dick Polman summarizes Benedict Arlen’s vast matrix of flip-floppery in recent years: “He has seemingly been everywhere, which arguably leaves him nowhere.  He says he voted for Bush-Cheney and McCain-Palin… but says he’ll vote for Obama in ‘12.  He voted against Elena Kagan for solicitor general, but says he has ‘an open mind’ about her ascent to the Supreme Court…  He voted against Robert Bork for the high court, but famously defended Clarence Thomas and voted for John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., although now, with respect to Roberts, he says that he made an error in judgment.”

Specter doesn’t just flip-flop—he does double lutzes and triple toe loops and tops it all off with a quadruple salchow, all before his supporters and opponents can catch their breath and figure out where he stands on an issue and whether his position has changed in the past five seconds.

FiveThirtyEight.com documents that Arlen Sepulcher voted 58% of the time with Democrats from January to March 2009, before Pat Toomey joined the Pennsylvania primary race.  After Toomey entered, but before Specter had switched parties, Specter voted 84% of the time with Republicans.  Then, during the period after Specter had switched parties but before liberal Joe Sestak had entered the race, he voted 69% of the time with Democrats again.  Finally, after Sestak emerged as his primary challenger, Specter tacked to the left and voted a whopping 97% of the time with Democrats.

The clincher that Specter is all about expediency, not principle, is that Obama’s grassroots group Organizing for America worked furiously to get Specter elected—even though there was a bona fide left-wing liberal, Joe Sestak, in the race—in exchange for Specter’s votes last year on the stimulus and health care bills.  With the cozy Obama-Specter alliance firmly in place, what does Obama need with a politician who might actually vote for his policies out of principle?

In a final ironic development capping Specter’s dishonorable career (proof of such: Time magazine named him one of the U.S.’s 10 best senators in 2006!), Specter discovered yesterday that his party switch was all for naught, and even harmful to his aspirations.  Specter recently admitted, before he was trounced in yesterday’s primary, “Well, I probably shouldn’t say this.  But I have thought from time to time that I might have helped the country more if I’d stayed a Republican.”

Democrats will no doubt claim that Sestak won the race because the country is clamoring for more socialism.  But really it’s because Americans loathe political opportunists like Specter.

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Everyone’s bemoaning Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s “political” decision to run for Senate as an Independent instead of a Republican, since he knows he’d lose the primary to Marco Rubio.

Everyone’s missing the point.

The political rule-bending is tied to the ideology.  Liberals and centrists are more likely to bend the rules to win elections and votes than conservatives.  It’s part of their political philosophy.

Behold the following Democratic party-hoppers in recent years:

•    Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republicans in 2001 to swing the balance to Democrats early in George W. Bush’s first term, after being promised cushier arrangements by Democratic leaders

•    Liberal Mayor Mike Bloomberg switched from Republican to Independent in 2007 to garner greater support for his nanny-state governing style in New York

•    Arlen Specter left the Republicans for the Democrats last year in anticipation of a difficult primary race

•    New York Senate Democrats Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada, Jr. became Republicans temporarily last summer in an attempt to enhance their leadership positions, then switched back to being Democrats when their bid failed

•    RINO Dede Scozzafava endorsed Democratic candidate Bill Owens over conservative Doug Hoffman after dropping out of NY-23 last November

Also witness the following liberal rule-bending over the last decade:

•    Al Gore’s campaign pushed for hand recounts using loosened standards in select counties in the 2000 Florida presidential recount

•    Democrats won other elections by finding judges to approve different counting standards in Minnesota (Al Franken, Senate) and Washington (Christine Gregoire, Governor)

•    New Jersey Democrats put Frank Lautenberg on the ballot in 2002 after their candidate Robert Torricelli was hit with corruption charges, despite a law on the books against changing candidates so late in the election

•    Massachusetts Democrats withheld the right of Republican Governor Mitt Romney to appoint a successor in 2004 if John Kerry became president, then changed the rules in 2009 so Governor Deval Patrick could install a Democrat to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat until the special election

•    Mayor Bloomberg successfully pushed in 2007 to change the rule he had argued for in 2001 that had prevented Republican Rudy Guiliani from serving more than two terms, so that Bloomberg could go on to serve three terms himself

•    Democrats recently maneuvered to pass their health care bill, including using budget reconciliation to overcome a non-filibuster-proof Senate majority and an unenforceable executive order banning abortion funding to overcome their absence of a House majority in favor of the bill

In contrast, whenever a conservative abandons Democrats, it’s almost always due to newfound disdain for the party’s agenda.  It also almost always seems to happen at a completely inconsequential time, when there’s no crucial vote at stake or favors to be handed out, or even when the candidate has something to lose.

Alabama Representative Parker Griffith switched parties last December, citing revulsion over the direction in which House leaders were taking the country.  Griffith did not switch to join a majority party like Specter or improve his electoral chances like Crist—he did it because, as he put it, Democratic leaders “continue to push an agenda focused on massive new spending, tax increases, bailouts, and a health care bill that is bad for our healthcare system…  [A]fter watching this agenda firsthand, I now believe that the differences in the two parties could not be more clear, and that… I must align myself with the Republican party.”

New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg rejected President Obama’s offer of Commerce Secretary last year, after having met with Obama about the position and coordinated with Governor John Lynch to name a replacement Senator.  When Gregg got a closer look at Obama’s massive stimulus proposal and plans to politicize the Census, he ran for the hills.  There was nothing opportunistic above Gregg’s move—if anything, it cost him a prestigious position and soured his relations with the new administration.

Texas Representative Ralph Hall became a Republican in 2004 after 54 years of being a moderate Democrat.  Rumors had been circulating since the Republican Revolution that he would switch parties, but he didn’t do so when it was expedient, preferring instead to “pull my party back toward the middle.”  Hall was instrumental in forming the moderate coalition of Blue Dog Democrats.  After years of watching his party bash President Bush over Iraq, Hall changed parties, explaining, “When the country is at war you need to support the president.  Some of my fellow congressmen have not been doing that.”  Far from showering him with plumb assignments, Republican leaders refused to allocate funding for Hall’s district—as Hall said, “the only reason I was given was that I was a Democrat.”  The party eventually embraced him; but the point is that Hall did not switch for political opportunism, but rather at great cost to himself.

Virginia Representative Virgil Goode switched parties in 2000 after Democrats gave him hell over voting for three of the articles of impeachment against President Clinton.  Goode is rather ideologically conservative anyway, having voted for the Iraq War, the surge, and tough anti-amnesty immigration and veterans’ rights legislation.  He won reelection in 2000 as an Independent—a politically risky move, but one that genuinely reflected his evolving ideology—before joining the Republicans in 2002.

While hawkish Senator Joe Lieberman did leave the Democratic Party in 2006 to run in the general election as an Independent Democrat, he at least had the guts to face his opponent Ned Lamont in the primary first.  Lieberman did not, like Crist, go around quoting Abraham Lincoln, saying that he was switching parties so he could better serve the cause of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and that his change in party had nothing—absolutely nothing!—to do with his reelection prospects.

There’s a reason liberals and moderates are more likely to switch parties or bend election rules in their favor.  They do not, at their core, all the way down, believe in a stable, predictable rule of law, as clearly stated and adhered to by all citizens in a system of government known as a republic.  They believe in doing whatever they can get away with, if they can convince enough people at the time that it’s right for them to do it—hence the “democracy” in Democratic.

Show me a DINO who bolted for the Republican Party for ulterior motives, and I’ll show you a rare creature indeed.



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Supporters of the Democrats’ health care bill offer the following take on Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha “Kennedy” Coakley, a plea they hope will draw on voters’ sense of fairness and magnanimity:

If Brown wins, the health care bill will not be passed.  It is a terrible shame that something this nation has frittered away a year debating and Congress has spent a year drafting, something that may not get another chance again—if at all—for a whole generation, could be dismantled because of the obstinacy of one man who wins a special election in a tiny state.  Brown may even derail Obama’s entire agenda.

As if it will do any good, here’s a point-by-point rebuttal of this selfless appeal by Democrats to our leftist instincts:

(1) The point of a debate is to have two sides present their cases and see which makes the better argument.  The outcome is not predetermined, much as Democrats would like it to be and have tried to make it so.  Republicans spoke, Democrats spoke, and the American people made up their minds: Republicans won.

(2) The fact that we spent a year debating this horrendous bill, in all its myriad forms, is indeed deplorable, when we could have been talking about how to encourage the Iranian protestors, win in Afghanistan, or abolish the Department of Education.  But just because gallons of ink have been spilled and billions of megabytes have been transmitted and trillions of cubic feet of C02 have been exhaled thrashing out numerous claims made by Democrats and debunked by Republicans, doesn’t mean we have to embrace the fallacy of sunken costs and pass something that stinks just to rationalize our squandered effort.

Making a $100 down payment on a $1,000 dishwasher offered by a fraudulent mail-order company that folds does not obligate us to send the company the other $900 so our first $100 isn’t wasted.  If any Democrats want to silently change their positions on the bill and pretend they felt that way all along, I promise you that Republicans will be tactful enough to go along with the charade.

(3) If it isn’t right to pass this legislation in the current generation, just as it wasn’t right to pass it in Hillary Clinton’s generation, or Truman’s generation, or FDR’s generation, then we can afford to wait at least another generation to debate it again, if liberals really insist on holding and losing this contest once more.

(4) Saying that the special election in Massachusetts could destroy the whole health care plan is like saying that the failure of an asteroid to demolish the court building where Bernard Madoff was sentenced destroyed his chance for freedom.  The success of this health care bill has been dangling like an anvil from a spider web since last summer.  The special election in Massachusetts is only the latest in many gusts of wind to threaten to crash the Democrats’ hopes to the ground.

(5) Saying that the travesty of Democrats’ health care bill not passing is due to Scott Brown’s stubbornness upon being elected is like saying that the travesty of Confederate soldiers’ dying is due to Abraham Lincoln’s stubbornness upon being elected.  In addition to its being the right course of action, if Brown wins and votes no on the bill, it will be because he was explicitly elected for that purpose alone, to take that specific action by itself.  Indeed, he barely had to say a word about any of the other issues in order to win fanatical political and financial support from Republicans, Independents, and Democrats in Massachusetts and across the country.

Promising to kill the health care bill is not just the biggest, but the only functional plank in Brown’s platform.  Senator Brown could turn around next month and introduce a bill using Medicare funds to subsidize partial-birth abortions for illegal Islamist immigrant tax cheats with Al-Qaeda ties, and he would still be Republicans’ hero for having voted down the health care bill.

(6) If Obama isn’t buried under a pile of political debris after his dustup with the 41st Senator, and dares to try to foist cap-and-trade, Stimulus II, or other reckless spending debacles onto a battered and bruised Congress, he will find it even harder to pass such legislation than he did the health care bill, and that is saying something.  Indeed, one of the fringe benefits of voting for Brown is that he will block not only the health care bill but anything like it that comes down the chute.

As an opponent of the health care bill, here’s my take on Tuesday’s election, which I hope will appeal to any remaining connection to reality liberals may have:

Even if Brown loses, the health care bill still will not be passed.  There are too many gaping discrepancies between the two versions of the bill to be reconciled; Blue Dog Democrats are too nervous about their own reelection campaigns this fall; and soon-to-be-elected Republican majorities in the House and Senate will do everything in their power to reverse any steps taken to enact this wretched bill.

They may even derail Obama’s entire agenda.

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The surest sign that Obama’s presidency is going to turn out to like Bill Clinton’s is that he is already becoming a drag on the Democratic ticket, a state of affairs Clinton took a full six years to realize.

Obama followed around Democratic candidates Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Creigh Deeds of Virginia like a puppy for months during their gubernatorial campaigns.  The President made two visits to Virginia to stump for Deeds and three to New Jersey to rally for Corzine, including stops in Newark and Camden two days before the election.  On Sunday, Obama exhorted New Jersey crowds, “I want everybody in this auditorium to make a pledge that in these next 48 hours, you will work just as hard for Jon as you worked for me.”

In yesterday’s off-year elections, both candidates were soundly defeated.

In New Jersey, Obama beat McCain by a 16% margin in 2008; this year, the Republican beat the Democrat by 5%, a 21-point reversal.  This, despite the presence of a third-party candidate who took votes away from the Republican and a five-to-one Corzine-to-Christie spending advantage.

In Virginia, Obama beat McCain by 6% in 2008; this year, the Republican beat the Democrat by 18%, a 24-point reversal.  In both Virginia and New Jersey, independents—who voted heavily for Obama and other Democratic candidates in 2008—voted 2-to-1 for the Republican candidate in 2009.

Meanwhile, Obama never showed his face in upstate New York’s 23rd congressional district, where Democratic candidate Bill Owens squeaked past Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman with a victory in Tuesday’s special election.  Obama didn’t directly endorse liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava, but she received heavily publicized support from ACORN, Obama’s pet community organization, which helped solidify her lack of popularity and set in motion events that led to her withdrawal the weekend before the election.

In New York 23, 52% of the electorate voted for Obama in 2008; 49% voted for the Democrat in 2009.  It is miraculous that Hoffman did as well as he did, given the presence of a Republican on the ballot and the fact that Hoffman doesn’t live there, wasn’t familiar with local issues, and joined the race at the eleventh hour.

Bill Clinton’s pariah status in Al Gore’s presidential run and other Democratic congressional and gubernatorial campaigns in 2000 was based, of course, not on drooping support for his policies, but on his drooping boxers.

George W. Bush became a hindrance in 2008 only partly because he didn’t consistently govern as a conservative, but partly because Republican candidate John McCain ran from conservative positions every chance he got.

It was not Obama’s mere presence that flipped New Jersey and Virginia, or his absence that gave New York 23 to the Democrat.  The elections in New Jersey and Virginia—the former with its link to the New York City metro area, the latter with its proximity to D.C. and increasingly industrialized northern suburbs—were more ideologically focused on Obama’s agenda of taxing, spending, and increasing the size of government than the election in rural, upstate New York.

Hoffman lost, and Christie and McDonnell won, because New York 23 was not a referendum on Obama’s legislative priorities, whereas New Jersey and Virginia were.  The election in New York 23, a district that probably has more cows than people and more soldiers (from Fort Drum) than policemen, was about local issues.  In contrast, exit polling revealed that 62% of Virginia voters cited taxes or the economy as their most important issue.  In New Jersey, which has some of the highest income, sales, and property taxes in the country, and was rated last of all 50 states by the Tax Foundation for its business tax climate, 58% of voters mentioned property taxes or the economy as their most pressing concern.

According to Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics, “I do not think that a special election – any special election – is a particularly good barometer of the political climate of any place outside the district in question.”  He is correct—about New York 23, whose results say almost nothing about the country’s concern with the current administration’s goals.  New Jersey and Virginia—whose populations are 12 to 13 times larger than New York 23’s—are far more attuned to and potentially affected by Obama’s agenda.

As former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers noted, Democrats’ battle in New Jersey “can’t be completely attributed to a bad economy and to an unpopular incumbent in New Jersey.  There is something afoot in the land that people are uncomfortable about and one of the issues is spending.  And that is probably the biggest issue.”

Similarly, John Judis of The New Republic notes, “[I]n early August, the margin between Deeds and McDonnell jumped, and remained high for the rest of the election.  At the very same time, Obama’s approval numbers in Virginia plummeted.”  Even Deeds admitted on the campaign trail that Obama’s policies in conjunction with his support were hurting Deeds.

Obama’s blessing is turning into the kiss of death—as witnessed during the health care debate this summer, when the population turned against Congress’s legislation in precise proportion to Obama’s attempts to “explain” it in his press conferences and Sunday talk show appearances.  Beyond widespread mistrust of his agenda, there is growing distaste for Obama as a political figure as a result of his incessant, narcissistic TV and radio appearances and thin-skinned bullying of critics.

The question is when Obama the politician will start to become synonymous with Obama the purveyor of a hated agenda.