Depending on who wins the race, pundits will view an upcoming Congressional election on March 31 as either an endorsement or a repudiation of Barack Obama’s economic policies.
The election in question is in New York’s 20th Congressional District, which snakes along as a sideways “T” along the state’s eastern border. The race became necessary when Congressman Kirsten Gillibrand was named to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate seat she vacated when President Obama named her as Secretary of State. The battle pits Republican Jim Tedisco against Democrat Scott Murphy, with the winner serving out the remainder of Gillibrand’s House term.
So this race is a little unusual in that national attention has been bestowed upon this upstate district that lies within reach of both the minor media market of the Albany area and the huge New York City metro market. It’s somewhat analogous to our Congressional district in that it’s peripheral to a large media center but more served by a smaller one.
Needless to say, media is a large part of the effort. Here’s two ads from my old friends at Our Country Deserves Better, a PAC who’s made this race one of its major causes. They’re both attack ads, with this one hammering Scott Murphy’s disdain of the military:
This one talks about taxes:
In both cases we have a battle that sounds like our local Harris vs. Kratovil slugfest. Hopefully 20th District voters will vote in a somewhat more conservative manner than we did.
Having said that, let’s look at what the political pundits will say depending on who wins – at least the pundits who occupy the Sunday morning shows.
If Scott Murphy wins, it will be seen as an endorsement of Barack Obama’s policies and yet another blow to Reagan conservatism. Americans will be seen as more confident that the bailouts will soon work and the stimulus will indeed stimulate the economy – otherwise wouldn’t the Republican have won?
But if Jim Tedisco wins these pundits will dismiss it as a meaningless local race won by a politician with more style than substance who won based on the dirtiest ads. Of course it won’t be a referendum on Obama’s economic plans.
As I see it, if the voters of upstate New York – a state with primarily Democrats in charge and suffering from some of the highest tax rates in the nation along with the fallout from the disaster which befell the financial industry over the last year or so – replace the Democrat Gillibrand with a GOP Congressman, one would have to conclude that there are pockets of America which indeed want change, and that change doesn’t include those items President Obama has placed high on his list of priorities.
Putting Hillary Clinton in as Secretary of State may do more far-reaching damage to an Obama presidency than the threat she presented residing in the Senate if her replacement’s Congressional seat switches parties. It will be another in a recent string of GOP victories which has been little noticed since the 2008 elections (in Louisiana and Georgia), and the first in a “blue” state.
Let’s hope we wake up on April Fool’s Day to the news that a trick’s been played on Barack Obama.
