I always find it quite humorous to watch the political pundits try to explain election results. They fall over each other trying to explain why things happened the way they did. They attempt to give the Washington view of the results instead of the Main Street view of the results. These pundits have no clue as to what those of us on Main Street are thinking, and it shows. They dismiss Tea Party protesters as a fringe, right-wing minority, full of bigots and homophobes. They do not understand why we, as citizens, would vote out long-time Washington insiders and replace them with fresh faces who care more about the people they represent instead of the office that they serve in.
This can be seen in the results of the primary elections from this past Tuesday, May 18. As I have watched pundits try to explain what happened, I decided that I would try to set the record straight and explain the results in a much more accurate way than the pundits ever could.
1. Conservatism still matters. In a race to determine who will get to fill out the term of long-time corrupt Congressman Jack Murtha, Mark Critz (D) defeated Tim Burns (R). And Critz should have won the race, given the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans in that district by close to a 2:1 ratio. However, the race was much closer than that. In fact, it was so close that Critz did not want the President anywhere near the race. He even identified himself as pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-health care bill. In fact, he made himself sound conservative. Why? He needed to do this in order to win (once in the House, he will not continue to hold these views – he will not be allowed to). He knew he could not be liberal (like Murtha) and win the race. In a day and age where the pundits tell Republicans that they have to move to the middle in order to win elections, we see that the opposite is indeed true. Conservatives should stay where they are to win. Democrats need to move toward the conservatives in order to keep seats. Conservatism wins elections. We just need to stick to conservative values.
2. Some people still do not get it. Why do I say this? Because 2 Pennsylvania officials won their primary elections while under indictment for using their offices for political gain. The law states that you are not allowed to use your state offices or state resources for re-election purposes. PA has several officials under indictment now for this very thing. Yet the people in the districts of Bill DeWeese and John Perzel voted for them and passed them through to run in the general election. Why? Because these guys bring home the bacon. They bring money back into the district. Basically, they buy the votes of their constituents. And as long as that happens, the people in their district could care less if the law is being broken, as long as they are bringing money back to the voters of the district.
3. We want our elected officials to believe in something. Sen. Arlen Specter lost in the primary to Joe Sestak. Several months ago, Specter changed parties in order to win his way back to the Senate for another term. He knew he had irritated too many Republicans to even stand a chance of winning the nomination. He changed his views on some key issues so as to agree with the Democrats and increase his chances of re-election. What is boiled down to was the Democrats did not trust him enough to vote for him. If he was willing to change parties so that he could be re-elected, what else would he do in order to save his political career? People want politicians that have the courage of their convictions, not politicians who go wherever the political headwinds blow them. The Democrats did not trust Specter and the Republicans knew better.
4. The myth of the Presidential coattails. It is said that a popular President should have coattails, that due to his election, many people running for lesser offices in that same party should be able to ride his coattails into office. And while that did happen in 2008, it does not look like it will happen in 2010. The President was highly popular when running for office in 2008, and still remains quite popular as a person now. However, trying to make that translate into electoral victories for the party is not that easy (and this has happened to many Presidents over the years, not just the current President). He has campaigned so far for 4 highly touted elections, and all of the candidates that he has supported have lost. Is that a reflection on the President? Or a reflection on a less-than-stellar candidate? Or is it backlash for policies that are not very popular? Or is it anti-incumbent sentiment? I would say it is a mix of all 4 of these factors. I am not a fan of political endorsements for primary elections. Let the people decide and the parties and elected officials need to stay out of the way. We are smart enough to make our own decisions. We do not need the President (or any other elected official) to tell us how to vote.
5. Presidential popularity does not necessarily benefit the entire party come election time. The President is still a fairly popular person in public opinion polls. Many do not like his policies, but like Clinton, he is viewed as a likeable person. However, this does not help his party’s candidates win. We can look back over history and see that many Presidents were popular but that they lost seats in Congress in the mid-term elections. The race for Murtha’s seat is an example of this. Critz did not want Obama campaigning for him because he knew it would hurt his chances. Usually, someone running for office would love the chance to have the President campaign for him. But given the President’s declining approval ratings and some unpopular legislation that he recently signed into law, there are some in his party who do not want to be associated with him (or the Democratic leadership in Congress) while they are running for office.
6. Stop putting so much stock in political pundits. The punditry exists because people allow them to exist. We put stock in what they say. We want to have that ‘spin’ put on events. We want them to think for us. However, pundits only see what they want to see. They only tell you the things that conform to their worldview. They never see themselves as being wrong on anything. I urge you to do your own research. I urge you to study things as they are, not how you would like them to be. You need to form your own opinions and stop repeating someone else’s opinion as though it were fact. We need to know more than what we believe. We need to know why we believe the way we do. No one can do that for you. If we all had a firmer grasp of what we believe, then we would not need to rely on other people to tell us what we should think and how to interpret the news of the day.
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