This might not look like fertile ground for a Republican takeover in 2010, but times may be a-changing.  Republican Ed Mangano appears to have narrowly defeated a two-term incumbent Democrat in the County Executive race this month, with the recount expected to conclude on Monday.  Had a spoiler Conservative Party candidate not claimed over 9000 votes, the race would not even be close.  Republicans also won a majority on the County Legislature for the first time in a decade, and unseated the Democrat County Controller.

Against this background, Frank Scaturro, a young, energetic, across-the-board conservative with the pragmmatic, problem solving style of Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell, is challenging McCarthy in the 4th Congressional District race in 2010.  McCarthy’s last rating from the American Conservative Union was an 8.  Her lifetime rating is 20.  The NRA, not surprisingly, gives her an “F.”  Her last rating from the left wing Americans for Democratic Action was a 20.  McCarthy was first elected as a moderate former Republican, but has drifted steadily left in 13 years in Congress. In the current Congress she has voted the Democratic Party line more than 98 percent of the time, according to the Washington Post.  She voted “no” on the Stupak Amendment to the House version of the Obama-Pelosi healthcare bill, and then voted yes on the final bill.  This district is simply not that liberal, and McCarthy could be far more vulnerable than past election results suggest.

Scaturro was formerly Republican counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position in which he helped shepherd through the supreme court nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito.  He is currently an Assistant Professor at Hofstra law school, teaching Constitutional law.  Human Events’ John Gizzi recently profiled the race.  You can donate or get involved here.

Scaturro can put this seat back in the red column, especially if, as now appears likely, 2010 is a strong Republican year.  This is the type of race Republicans need to get involved in early, stretching the Democrats defense to the breaking point.  Remember, early fundraising dollars matter most.

The Democrats have to know that NY-23 was a fluke – they can’t count on gross Republican miscalculation in 2010.  Meanwhile, Democratic efforts to write off the New Jersey and Virginia losses by blaming them on bad candidates simply don’t ring true. 

In Virginia, Creigh Deeds was not a bad candidate.  In the primary, despite being vastly outspent, he hammered the powerful Terry McAuliffe.  He had the endorsement of the Washington Post, which argued that of three strong Democratic primary candidates, in the general election, “Deeds’ moderate platform would have the broadest appeal.”  On liberal blog sites, Deeds was the overwhelming favorite as the best candidate, the one most likely to win the general election.  

Jon Corzine was not a bad candidate, either – he could self-fund his race, an enormous advantage, and outspend any opponent 3 to 1, as he did to Chris Christie.  He had been elected statewide twice before.  What Corzine was, was a bad governor.  And why was he a bad governor?  Because he followed the same type of policies that the Democrats are now pursuing on a national level.  Maybe someone will notice that.

It has been noted lately that the Democrats plan to hold on next fall is to go negative, and to do so early – to “vaporize” opponents, as Harry Reid says.  But that is exactly what both Deeds and Corzine tried to do.  Corzine, who won by 11 points in 2005, lost by 4 this year.  Deeds, who lost to the same man in the attorney general race 4 years ago by fewer than 350 votes, this time lost by 18 percentage points.  Meanwhile, President Obama embraced and campaigned with both men.  Yet McDonnell won by the biggest margin for a Republican ever, and Christie by the largest margin for a Republican in 24 years.  Thus, the Democrats’ two key strategies to hold on in 2010 (other than pray for a better economy) failed miserably – Obama couldn’t save them, and relentlessly negative campaigning couldn’t save them.  These men were not bad candidates, as their past success and praise for them suggests – rather, they were running on bad issues in a time in which Democrats are increasingly blamed for the nation’s difficulties.

In the other Congressional special election, California’s 10^th District, Lt. Governor  John Garamendi won by 11 points after heavily outspending his opponent in a district won by his predecessor in 2008 by 34 points, in which Democrats have an 18 point edge in voter registration, and which Obama carried by 31 points.  Not much to crow about.

Down ballot, in races for lower offices, including state legislatures and mayors, it gets worse.  Republicans rolled to easy double digit victories in the Virginia Attorney General and Lt. Governor races.  In the Lt. Governor’s race, Bill Bolling, who won by just 1 percent in 2005, won by 12 points.  Republicans gained 6 seats (pending one recount) in the State Assembly, giving them a 61-37-2 majority.  Republicans gained a seat in the New Jersey House.  Republicans took control of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and won six of seven statewide races in the Keystone State.  Republicans gained in the heavily populated New York City suburbs , taking control of both Westchester County and Nassau County for the first time in a decade.  They even gained a couple seats on the New York City Council (in addition to the re-election of their sort-of Republican Mayor Bloomberg).  In Michigan, in a special election for a state  senate seat that had gone Democratic by 61-39 when it was last up in 2006, the Republican flipped the landslide around and won 61-36.  Republicans also flipped a New Hampshire state house seat in a special election. 

When the Republicans are rolling up victories in the northeast corridor and in Michigan, the Democrats have to be worried.  But Republican successes weren’t limited to such recent Democratic stomping grounds.  In liberal Washington state, a Republican captured 58 percent of the vote to win a state House seat controlled by Democrats for 22 years, and Republican candidates steamrolled to landslide victories to easily retain seats in two other special elections for state house. 

We might also note that the Republicans picked up two Democratic seats in special elections last month, winning a previously Democratic state house seat with 63% of the vote in a special election in Tennessee last month, and also picking up a formerly Democrat held state house seat in Oklahoma.    

Even in the safest of Democratic bastions, the Democrats underperformed.  In a special state house election in Missouri, for example, Democrats held a safe Democratic seat with 61 percent of the vote.  Sounds impressive, but in 2008, in what was also an open seat race, the Democrat carried the district with 69 percent of the vote .   This year’s showing, in fact, was the worst for the Democrats in the district since at least 1994. Meanwhile, Republicans romped to victories in safe Republican state legislative seats in South Carolina, and two races in Georgia.

Democrats held most of their big city mayors, but Republicans did to as incumbent mayors did well throughout the country, in what were mostly non-partisan races.  But a few offices changed party control, however, usually away from the Democrats, and many in the battleground Midwest and in the northeast, where the GOP is supposed to be dead. 

Toledo elected independent Mike Bell, ending 20 years of Democratic control.  An independent also defeated an incumbent Democrat in Dayton.  Republicans picked up the Mayor’s office in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.   In an open seat race in Manchester, New Hampshire, Republican Ted Gatsas kept the Mayor’s office in GOP hands with the best showing by a Republican in the city in more than a decade.  In another open seat Mayor’s race, in Norwich, Connecticut, Republican Peter Nystrom easily won election to an office previously held by a Democrat.  Republicans also won the Mayor’s office in Stamford for the first time since 1993, winning 55 percent of the vote in a city with a 2-1 Democratic edge in voter registration.  A Republican ousted the Democrats from the Mayor’s office in Stratford, Connecticut, and the GOP picked up council seats throughout the state.  You have to wonder if Chris Dodd was watching. 

Republicans picked up Mayor’s offices out west, too.  In a non-partisan race in Washington’s 4^th largest city, Republican Tim Leavitt defeated labor-backed, 14 year incumbent Royce Pollard, saying, “My opponent seems to think government creates jobs. Creating jobs is done by the business community. Where government can help out is by getting out of the way.”

The Democrats did pick up one mayor’s office of note, in Charlotte, North Carolina, but Republicans returned the favor by taking the Mayor’s slot away from the Democrats in Greensboro.  Democrats were left to find solace in such holding actions, such as not losing as many state assembly seats in New Jersey as they had thought they might. 

Republicans ought not, and probably cannot, sit around and hope they can ride into office in 2010 merely on a bad economy and Democratic ineptitude.  For one thing, the economy is resilient enough, and the Democrats and the Fed have thrown enough money into it, that the economy and the unemployment numbers should be improved and improving a year from now.  We need to press forward with common sense solutions to everyday concerns, and be explaining now why the President’s economic policies are retarding, rather than helping, the economy to recover.  And we should keep emphasizing the value of freedom.  But we can’t just expect 2010 to fall into our laps.  That said, Tuesday was a very good night for Republicans, and the more one looks at it, the harder it is for Democrats to claim otherwise. 

After Christie led all summer, this race has essentially become a deadheat, thanks to New Jersey’s Democratic electorate and Jon Corzine’s millions.  Corzine has outspent Christie about 10-1 over the summer, and is still outspending him about 3 to 1.  The polls are now showing this even.  Quinnipiac has Corzine up a point, his first lead in any poll this year.

A win for Christie is important, not only because he’d be a better governor than Corzine, but because a win will help in candidate recruitment, fundraising, and voter enthusiasm for the GOP.  The more signs there are that 2010 looks good, the more donors open their wallets, and potential candidates step up (meanwhile, the opposite happens to our friends on the Blue side of things).  So a Christie win is important for more conservative candidates in other races. 

Go here

Me:  Did you go to the speech?

V: No, I decided I did not want to hear Obama.

Me: How many kids went?

V: I would say most.

Me: What did the kids who went say about it after?

V:  Most of them just wanted to get out of class.

Some parents don’t like the idea of the President beeming his image into every school in the country on Tuesday.  I think a lot of people have gotten carried away with criticizing the president on this, but I’ll admit that I dislike it, too.  I dislike it not because the President’s speech is too political, but because it is not political.  As I note here, the President really has  nothing to say about government policy.  Here’s the speech in a nutshell:  “Welcome back to school.  Stay in school, work hard.”  

My kids don’t need to hear that from the President.  This is a President who once again shows that he has no idea of the proper role of government.  If the President wants to talk about governmental affairs, great.  I’d love for him to stop by our school to do so.  That would be a great experience for the kids.  But I do not want the President trying to raise my children.  When people ask, “how can you object to the President urging kids to stay in school,” I ask them what they’d think if I stopped by their house one night, uninvited, to tell their kids how to behave.

But Marty Peretz takes the cake.  You know what Peretz thinks?  He writes, ”it is almost disloyal to refuse any children the right to hear him.  Disloyal and nutty.”  Well gee, Martin, thanks for the “almost,” at least on the first try.  

Where’s Hillary when you need her?

This is a Corvette that looks to be in pretty good condition.  Black, pretty sharp car.  I’m sure there are a lot of young men crammed into 2001 Nissans who would have liked this car.

In this video, a ‘98 Cadillac DeVille with less than 80,000 miles meets its end.  Just 68,000 miles on this Chevy Caprice wagon.

A nice looking 2001 Mazda light truck with 75,000 miles bites the dust here.  Here’s a good looking Volvo prematurely destroyed.  This SUV would look at home in any tony U.S. suburb.

Really, you ought to look at at least a couple of these videos, and the hundreds more like them on YouTube.  Are these “clunkers?”  Can it really help the economy to destroy perfectly good assets?  Are the people running the government the most economically illiterate bunch since FDR ruled the roost?  Or are they dumber?

Following up on the popular “cash for clunkers,” the government has created a plan to save the restaurant industry while attacking America’s growing obesity problem.  It’s called “Rebates for Recipes.”  Under the program, individuals can take a meal to a restaurant.  If they order a new meal at the restaurant that has at least 20 percent fewer calories, the government will provide a rebate of between $3.50 and $4.50 (depending on the savings in calories) for any entre priced at $45 or less.  The restaurant is required to destroy the trade in meal (which must be edible at the time you enter the restaurant) by putting it down the disposal.  Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “there is no end to cross subsidies with catchy slogans that we can create.  And destroying perfectly good assets seems to be a proven way to improve the economic health of the nation.”

Senate sources say they expect the projected cost of the program to treble within a week.

Austin was based on the assumption that the government could limit some speech in order to enhance the voices of others, although the case tried not to frame it that way.  Rather, the Austin Court argued it was dealing with a “different type of corruption, the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth… .”  To most people, that sounds like an egalitarian argument, not one about “corruption.”  Which would be fine - it is perfectly acceptable to favor things on egalitarian grounds - except that the First Amendment to the Constitution appears to forbid the government from making such determinations.  As the Supreme Court stated in in the landmark case Buckley v. Valeo, “the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment, which was designed ‘to secure “the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources,”‘ and ‘”to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.”‘”

Thus, Austin has long been the odd man out in campaign finance jurisprudence, the case that doesn’t fit the mold.  And apparently the government now agrees, for rather than defend Austin, the government has apparently decided that the best defense is a good offense - in it’s brief, filed last week, it now argues that it not only can ban books published by corporations - it could ban books even if published by individuals.

As Richard Hasen notes, the government’s supplemental brief makes no mention of the “distortion” argument that underlay Austin. Instead, the government argues that it can regulate even independent speech because such speech might influence elections and might make officeholders feel some sense of gratitude to those who make such expenditures.  Such a rationale runs directly counter to Buckley and other Supreme Court precedents, including Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission and Federal Election Commission v. National Conservative Political Action Committee. The Buckley Court held that independent expenditures could not be regulated because, by nature being independent, there was less opportunity for an exchange of legislative favors, and because, simply put, allowing regulation of independent spending would carve a swath through the First Amendment too broad for even a Court writing in the immediate aftermath of Watergate to swallow.  Austin, clumsy and disingenuous as it is, nonetheless only alters that rule for corporations, and presumably unions.  Now the government seeks to alter the rule for all, allowing it to regulate all political speech that supports or opposes a candidate’s election.  Under the government’s proposed rule, not even actual gratitude is required before the government can limit speech - it is enough that the government thinks that in some cases legislators might feel gratitude.

If the Court was worried that Austin had no logical stopping place short of banning corporate published and distributed books and movies, we don’t think that the government’s new approach is going to be any comfort.  But hey, when you’re way behind and the clock is finally running out, why not throw the Hail Mary?

Cross Posted at Center for Competitive Politics, www.campaignfreedom.org.

I don’t think much of the anti-corruption rationale for upholding restrictions on political speech, on either theoretical or empirical grounds, but let’s let that pass today. In September, in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court will hear argument on whether to overrule Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that allows a complete ban on all corporate political expenditures.

Naturally, the “reform” community is up in arms. Why? Well, here is what Austin supporter Professor Rick Hasen, owner of the influential Election Law Blog, had to say in the immediate aftermath of the Court’s announcement on Austin:

If Republicans were wondering how their 2012 presidential candidate is going to compete against President Obama’s $600 million fundraising juggernaut, the Supreme Court seems poised to provide an answer: unlimited corporate spending supporting the Republican candidate, or attacking Obama.

Here is National Journal’s Eliza Newlin Carney, an ardent and long-time advocate of “reform:”

The bottom line: Already-influential corporations would win vast new powers — something that arguably couldn’t come at a worse time.

Campaign finance “reform” lobbyist Fred Wertheimer, President of the pro-regulation organization Democracy 21, expresses his concern that:

Overruling the Austin decision — and finding that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums of corporate funds to influence federal campaigns — would fundamentally undermine our democracy and change the character of federal elections. It would allow the immense wealth of corporations to drown out the voice of the American people.

Does this sound like these influential commentators are interested in “content neutral” legislation? Or does it sound like they want to silence a point of view that they associate with corporations, and, at least in Hasen’s case, with Republicans?

E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post’s syndicated Democratic columnist, adds similar thoughts:

[D]o conservatives on the court see an opportunity to fight the trends against their side by altering the very rules of the electoral game?

Is Dionne admitting that the law is intended to suppress pro-Republican voices?  Dionne goes on to quote Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.): the ruling, says Schumer, “would dramatically change America at a time when people are feeling that the special interests have too much influence and the middle class doesn’t have enough. It would exacerbate both of these conditions.”

So it is about forcing disfavored (by Senator Schumer) influences to keep quiet?

Finally, to drive the point home, there is this timely diary titled “Can We Make Campaign Finance Reform a Priority Yet,” at the far left blog site, Daily Kos, posted July 12: When the voices of ordinary citizens compete with those of corporate lobbyists with big donations, we lose every time.

Again, a lot of assumptions there about what constitutes speech, the ability of voters to process information and make decisions, what voters “really” want, and who constitutes ”ordinary citizens” (certainly not the millions who own shares in corporations!), etc., but the bottom line seems to be pretty clear -what Professor Hasen, Carney, Dionne, Senator Schumer, and the Daily Kos’s anonymous diarist all agree on is that campaign finance restrictions are needed to silence the left’s enemies so the left can win political victories.  The fact that they call their opponents “special interests” and accuse them with unsubstantiated charges of “corruption” is merely an effort to camouflage that fact.

Judge Sotomayor has had many favorable things to say about campaign finance reform in the past.  Let’s hope she gets some questions on it this week.

The story begins earlier this year when Connecticut State Senator Andrew McDonald proposed legislation (S. 1098) that would have forced the Catholic Church, contrary to the church’s doctrine, to relinquish control of parish finances (for those from congregationalist traditions who may not be aware of the organization of Catholic Churches, the Catholic Church, by doctrine, is very hierarchical, with Bishops responsible for all the parishes within the bishopric, and those Bishops reporting on up the line, ultimately to the Vatican.  Unlike most protestant demoninations, local parishes exercise little governing control.  This is not merely an issue of secular control but one of theological doctrine deeply entwined in the Catholic Church’s views on the role of clergy, the papacy and the church in fulfilling God’s mission).  Naturally the church opposed this incursion into its governance and doctrine, with the Bishop urging Catholics to contact their legislators and the Church supporting a mass rally in the state capital.

So the state struck back.  From the American Spectator story by Lisa Fabrizio:

It seems that our Diocese of Bridgeport — which in March was forced to marshal the faithful to defend itself from unconstitutional government interference — was notified by the Connecticut Office of State Ethics that it is under investigation for possible violations of the state’s lobbying laws.

Bishop William Lori sent a letter to the OSE challenging the investigation. He describes the activity that led to the investigation:

Following the surprise introduction of Bill 1098, a proposal that singled out Catholic parishes and would have forced them to reorganize contrary to Church law and the First Amendment, our Diocese responded in the most natural, spontaneous, and frankly, American, of ways: we alerted our membership - in person and through our website; we encouraged them to exercise their free speech by contacting their elected representatives; and, we organized a rally at the State Capitol…

On April 23, 2009, the Diocese received a letter from Thomas K. Jones, Ethics Enforcement Officer for the OSE, stating that it was “the subject of an Office of State Ethics evaluation,” which was “being conducted to ascertain whether the Diocese had violated [Connecticut General Statutes Sections] 1-94, 1-95 and 1-96 by failing to register as a lobbyist in Connecticut, by failing to submit all other appropriate lobbyist filings, and by failing to follow all applicable registration procedures.”

The OSE claims the Diocese acted as a “lobbyist” by: participating in a March 11, 2009, State Capitol rally against Raised Bill 1098 (the unconstitutional attempt to reorganize Catholic parishes contrary to Catholic teaching and tradition); making statements on its website urging its members to contact their elected representatives to oppose Raised Bill 1098; and making statements on its website urging its members to contact their legislators to oppose another bill, Raised Bill 899 (regarding same-sex marriage).

The subtext to all this is that the underlying legislation itself appears to be retaliation for the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage (Sen. McDonald and lead Connecticut House sponsor Rep. Michael Lawler are both gay). 

It’s hard to imagine that in a country with the First Amendment protections we are supposed to enjoy, it should even be a matter of discussion whether it is legal, without government approval in advance, to hold a rally at the Statehouse and encourage fellow citizens to contact their elected officials. Such is the state of “reform” and “ethics” that we do in fact have to have these discussions.

(This post adopted w/ permission from a post by Sean Parnell at the Center for Competitive Politics.

A couple other observations that stood out for me:

1) Lots of signs, and almost all of them obviously home made.  Even the few that were more professionally done were individualized and not the result of any monied effort anyone could see - there were not dozens of neatly printed signs, like you’d see at a union march, a pro-abortion rally, or something organized by the Chamber of Commerce.  These folks made up their signs and lugged them downtown for the tea party.

2) These were not Chamber of Commerce types, bankers, lobbyists, or stereotyped Young Republicans.  I saw my friend Joe Hallett in the crowd, a thoughtful, center-left columnist for the Columbus Dispatch (there to observe, not to participate) and I joked to him that he was the only guy there in a suit - which was pretty close to literally true.

3) People were polite, well behaved, sincere.  Contrary to what the left likes to think, the crowd wasn’t i some type of frenzy, faces contorted in rage, shouting anti-Obama slogans or anything like that.   My observation from a few conversations, watching the audience, and seeing how they reacted to speakers, was that what they had was less a white hot anger than a deep concern for their country - a feeling that the country was being rapidly changed in fundamental ways (with which they disagreed) on the basis of a phony mandate, a bait and switch, if you will.

4) Mostly white, good mix of age and gender.

5) Limited government, not so-called “social issues,” is the order of the day.

Is this low key gathering of people willing to give up their evening to stand in the cold, rain, and fading daylight, along with hundreds of others around the country, the rear-guard of the Reagan Revolution, or the smoldering start of something new?

This influence peddling is going to get worse - much worse - under the Obama regime. You can’t double the Federal government’s discretionary spending in one “stimulus” bill, and propose to nationalize health care (as Mr. Daschle wants to do), nationalize the auto industry (as has just about been done), nationalize the banks (already nationalized in all but name, with the President yesterday announcing plans to dictate their lending policies), and think people aren’t going to flock to Washington and pay big bucks to the Tom Daschles of the world to help them get their share of the loot.

These are not unintended consequences of the policies of big government. They are the essence of big government. The cash floating around Washington and being lavished on the Tom Daschles of the world is exactly what Democrats have longed for - money follows power.

Should Daschle’s nomination be rejected? Well, can you imagine a Republican being confirmed after “forgetting” to pay over $125,000 in taxes? Why should the people put up with it, especially from a man who, as Grover Norquist points out, has steadfastly fought to keep taxes high on others.

But I think Daschle should be confirmed. It is appropriate that Daschle - one of Washington’s top influence peddlers - should be saved precisely because he has influence. Then he, along with Mr. Geithner, can serve as a constant reminder to the American people of what this administration’s policies are really all about - rewarding Democrats and Democratic constituencies with other people’s money - and as a constant reminder that in this adminstration, one built on the notion of a massive expansion of government power, having influence with government is what it is all about.

Play by the rules? In the burgeoning world of big government, rules are for suckers. And Tom Daschle is no sucker. Stimulating, isn’t it?

Republican vote totals are also trending downward, from 50.6% in 2002 to 49.9% in 2004 to 44.8% in 2006, then this year’s 43.0%.  (In 1994, Republicans won 52.0% of the Congressional vote.)

In <a href=http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/12/11/us-senate-election-results/>Senate races,</a> Democrats won 52.1% of the vote, to the Republicans 44.6%.  Six years ago, when these same seats were up, the GOP candidates won 50.3%.

For 11 Governor’s races, the Democrats picked up 50.2% of the total vote to the Republicans’ 47.3%.

Obviously, the House statistics are most interesting, since they cover the country.  These numbers, of course, show real erosion and danger for Republicans.  But one can notice one upside: the last time the Democrats polled so low as this year’s GOP was 1928; four years later they elected Franklin Roosevelt in a landslide.  The last time the Republicans polled so low was 1976 - four years later they elected Ronald Reagan and won Senate control for the first time in 28 years.

Still, not a pretty picture.

Lots of info on what passed and what did not below the fold.

Here are a few highlights:

Tax cut measures failed in Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Oregon. The Massachusetts proposal would have repealed the state income tax, cutting state revenues by about 40 percent.something with which many Red State readers would agree but that the voters of Massachusetts thought too radical. (BTW, contrary to its nickname “Taxachusetts,” Massachusetts has fairly reasonable taxes - the 23rd highest as a percentage of household income). North Dakota was especially disappointing. The proposal there would have cut both individual and corporate tax rates. With the state projecting substantial surpluses, now would have been the time. Oregon’s proposal would have reduced state tax revenues by an estimated 14%, by removing the cap on the amount of federal tax that Oregonians could deduct from their state tax burden.

Tax hikes did a little better, but not much. Colorado, which we’re told has gone hopelessly blue, rejected three tax increases: a sales tax increase to fund services for people with developmental disabilities; a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies; and an end to caps on state revenues. All three failed by large margins. Hey, if blue and green Colorado won’t pass a “windfall profits” tax on oil (with revenues earmarked for renewable energy, no less, then maybe the national Democrats should drop that idea. Voters in blue Maine rejected a beverage tax to fund more health care. Health care! Florida voted for Obama, but it also voted against a measure to raise taxes to fund education. Education!! So voters weren’t giving the state a blank check, even in blue states. Montana voters renewed a millage to support the state university, as they have done every 10 years since 1920. Minnesota voters approved a small sales tax increase to provide funding for the arts.

As usual, most bond issues passed. Voters generally understand that bonding is an efficient way to fund infrastructure projects. California voters narrowly passed a $10 billion bond issue to build high speed rail. Spending the money on roads would have done much more to reduce congestion and probably pollution in the state. But they rejected California’s $5 billion bond for renewable energy bonds.

California’s ill-considered proposal to require 20% of energy to come from “renewable sources” by 2010 also failed, by an encouraging 65-35 margin. But renewable energy scored a win in Missouri, where voters approved a measure requiring utilties to generate more “alternative” energy, for example by spoiling Missouri’s beautiful countryside by placing visually ugly windmills everywhere. Yuck. Voters in Florida approved a measure allowing homeowners to modify their houses for renewable energy without getting a valuation increase. Was this a liberal “renewable energy” measure or a conservative “tax cut” measure? Hmmm. I tend to think the latter, since conservatives like clean energy, too. Anyway, seems to have been smartly designed.

Voters in Arizona and Ohio approved laws heavily regulating the “payday lending” industry. These were populist crusades that were hard to fight off - payday lenders indeed charge some very high rates. But people should be very uncomfortable when the state comes in after the fact and decides that people don’t know what they’re doing when they make decisions to borrow, and when it villifies and targets an industry for destruction.

California passed a law requring humane treatment of farm animals. Read Bush/Palin speechwriter Matthew Sculley’s “Dominion” if you don’t have sympathy for this issue.

Turning to non-economic issues, abortion restrictions failed in three states. In California, a parental notification law failed by 52% to 48%. South Dakota voters rejected a ban, and Colorado voters decisively rejected a measure to effectively criminalize abortion, with 73% voting no.

On same sex marriage, 28 states approved bans via referenda in the last decade - Arizona was the lone state whose voters had rejected a ban. This year, though, Arizona approved the ban by a 57% to 43% margin. California approved a ban by a narrow 53-47% margin. Arkansas passed a measure preventing unmarried couples from adopting children, regardless of whether the couple is same sex or opposite sex. Apparently, however, single gays can still adopt in Arkansas.

Gambling did OK, with Arkansas voters approving a new lottery and Maryland voters approving slots to fund higher education. Colorado and Missouri voters voted to allow more casinos. Ohio voters turned down a casino bill, but the reasons probably had more to do with writing a monopoly for a single casino operator into the state Constitution, than it did with opposition to gambling. Maine voters also rejected a new casino, and Massachusetts voters approved a ban on the state’s longstanding dog racing industry.

On Affirmative Action, Colorado voters narrowly defeated a measure prohibiting affirmative action, 50.6% to 49.4%. I believe they are the first state ever to reject such a measure at the ballot box. Nebraska voter, however, approved such a measure by nearly 60%.

Michigan voter overwhelmingly approved a bill allowing the use of medical marijuana. Look for an effort to pass this measure in another state in two years. Also, Massachusetts decriminalized possesssion of small amounts of marijuana. But California voters overwhelming voted against a decriminalization measure.

In Washington state, voters approved physician assisted suicide for competent, adult patients.

There was more: California voters appear to have narrowly approved a non-partisan redistricting plan, but there are still votes to count; term limits remain popular, with a proposal to repeal them meeting a typically crushing defeat in South Dakota. Oregon voters rejected a change in the state’s election system, to a Louisiana-type run-off plan. Colorado voters narrowly passed campaign finance restrictions on certain state contractors. The pattern that usually holds clear, though, is that there is no pattern.

Ballot referenda tend, year after year, to avoid major trends. I think that the medical marijuana vote in Michigan and the assisted suicide vote in Washington emphasize the empathy Americans feel for the severely ill, and their own anxiety about dying in pain. Term limits remain popular, but other proposals to change elections remain much less popular in practice than in theory, tending to lose (as in Oregon this year) or win narrowly, as in California and Colorado.

There is usually voter resistence to higher taxes, but also to large tax cuts.

Moreover, these results do not obviously track a states “red” or “blue” voting pattern.

My read is that Americans don’t really want major change. The appeal of Senator Obama’s “change” platform was based on dissatisfaction with how things were being run - but voters don’t want fundamental change. They just want their 401k to do allright; and they want decent schools and decent health care, but they don’t want you messing much with their health care or schools. They want to protect the environment but not destroy the economy to do it.

That desire for “normalcy” is truly the reality of America still being a “center-right” country, and it holds some hints for returning to a more conservative administration and congress in the coming years.

For a pithy summary of ballot issues and the election more generally, see the lively if sporadic blog of iconoclast David Mayer.

For more, hop below the fold.

Republicans lost control of the Ohio House, the New York Senate, the Delaware House, the Wisconsin House, and the Nevada Senate. The Montana House went from a 50-49 GOP edge with 1 Constitution Party representative, to a 50/50 GOP/Democrat tie - but this could yet change due to recounts. The Alaska Senate went from an 11-9 GOP edge to a 10-10 tie. Republicans’ hold on the Texas legislature could change due to recounts - currently, it looks like the GOP will hold a 76-74 edge.

But Republicans took control of the both Houses of the Tennessee legislature, the Oklahoma Senate, and the Montana Senate. Republicans also picked up 18 seats in New Hampshire’s massive 400 member state House. Democrats will control 60 state legislative chambers next year, Republicans 36. Two are tied and one state, Nebraska, has a non-partisan legislature (in reality dominated by Republicans). The National Conference of State Legislators has a neat page with the breakdown.

In gubernatorial races, the GOP lost a net of one seat, losing the Missouri governorship. Republicans came up just a little short in two tough races, for North Carolina’s open seat, and in Washington state, where Dino Rossi’s rematch with Christine Gregoire, who beat Rossi in 2004 after a number of shenanigans and two recounts, came up short. In the other eight races, each party successfully defended four seats.

The longtime joke about State Attorneys General is that the abbreviation “AG” really stands for “Aspiring Governor.” It does seem to be a popular platform for a run for the top job.

The heartbreaker AG race came in West Virginia, where trial lawyers favorite and long-time incumbent Darrell McGraw held off Dan Greear by fewer than 5000 votes. Democratic incumbents also won in Vermont, and North Carolina. Republican incumbents Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania and Rob McKenna in Washington were re-elected, as was Mark Shurtleft in Utah.

In some open seat races, Greg Zeller won an easy victory in Indiana to keep the office in GOP hands; but Republicans lost a pair of close ones when Chris Koster defeated Mike Gibbons 53-47 in Missouri and Steve Bullock defeated Tim Fox 52-48 in Montana to hold those seats for Democrats. In Ohio, where the Democratic AG Mark Dann resigned after a series of sex harassment and other scandals, Democratic State Treasurer Richard Cordray easily defeated former U.S. Attorney Michael Crites two complete the last two year’s of Dann’s term. This was a classy race between two talented public servants. Democrat John Kroger won in Oregon.

I want to suggest, however, that Palin’s potential appeal is much broader. On the day she was announced as Senator McCain’s running mate, I was in the car, and began getting excited phone calls from libertarian-oriented friends, thrilled with Palin’s selection. Flipping on the radio, I listened as Rush Limbaugh - who is not primarily a social conservative - was estatic. And I’ll admit, I was thrilled. Palin was the most libertarian candidate on a major party ticket since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Now, there are libertarians who disagree with this assessment, such as the talented young Ryan Sager, who saw the Palin pick as cementing the GOP as, “a southern-centered party based on social division and cultural resentment;” or Reason contributing editor Cathy Young, who sees in Governor Palin a “GOP in thrall to troglodytes.” But this is the careless language of the young. There are others, many others - I think a solid majority of libertarians, really - who agree that Palin’s libertarian critics are letting an immature hostility to all things religious, or a cosmopolitan animosity to Palin’s distinctly non-cosmopolitan aura, blind them to the type of Governor Palin has been. If you watch Palin’s debates from her Alaska political career, or her ads in the race for Governor, or look closely at her record at Governor, as Denver Post libertarian columnist David Harsanyi has, it becomes pretty clear that Palin has both campaigned and governed as a small government libertarian; secure on social issues but consciously not allowing them to define her campaign or her administration. Her campaigns, and her governance, focused on taxes, spending, market oriented health care change, market oriented environmental policy, and gun rights. It was a liberty agenda, including support for school choice and home schooling, less emphasis on the drug war, more talk of freedom. Indeed, her Vice Presidential run is interesting because it, too, was not dominated by the so-called “social issues,” but rather more focused on the general need to limit the size and scope of government.

In this, Palin represents, I think, the best tradition of Reagan - a blend of libertarianism and social conservatism that unites the wings of the GOP: the virtue and liberty candidate. Palin is a social conservative, but recognizes the limits of government power to enforce virtue. She is no intellectual, but she is smart and seems to have strong libertarian instincts.

In retrospect, it seems that Palin might have benefited from not being chosen by Senator McCain this year. She might have done better to have finished her term, won a landslide re-election, and introduced herself to the nation at her own pace and with her own message, not Senator McCain’s, which she carried loyally throughout the campaign. But she was certainly the most electrifying thing to hit GOP circles in this campaign. In any event, I hope that Governor Palin returns to Alaska, works hard, and gets that landslide re-elect that would force the scoffers to do something of a reappraisal. She is very young and has a great deal of time - she would be just 52 in eight years. Libertarians who have turned on Palin - mainly, it seems to me, from a visceral cultural reaction rather than a serious appraisal of the woman - should take another look. And conservatives such as Red State editor McLaughlin should also not be too quick to pigeon hole Palin. Palin certainly has the potential to appeal to the whole GOP coalition.

Libertarians and social conservatives need one another: both exist to resist the omnipotent state. As a result, they often don’t realize it, but their political destinies are inextricably linked. They cannot be enemies and hope to achieve their objectives.

Let’s hope Governor Palin plans her future carefully, continues to polish and improve her act, and returns to the national stage at the appropriate time.

The picture here this morning looks surprisingly like the picture in the aftermath of the 1992 election.

Senator Obama appears to have won the popular vote by about five points - it will probably be closer to six when all the votes are totaled. He has won somewhere between 349 and 376 electoral votes, depending on the outcome in Nebraska’s third congressional district, Missouri, and North Carolina. Using present vote totals, Obama would take North Carolina out of that group, to finish with 364 electoral votes.

In 1992, Clinton beat Bush by 5.3 percentage points in the popular vote, and finished with 370 electoral votes. Yes, there was a big difference - the presence of Ross Perot - but Clinton almost certainly would have won with or without Perot, and probably by very similar margins in both categories. Bottom line is that Democrats won in 1992 presidential just about what they won in the 2008 presidential.

If fact, even the electoral college map looks quite similar; depending on who wins North Carolina and Missouri, between just nine and eleven states will differ from 1992 to 2008. Most of those were extremely close this year, too, notably Montana and Georgia, which went Democratic in 1992 and narrow Republican in 2008, and Florida, Indiana, and Virginia, which went Republican in 1992 and barely Democratic in 2008.

After the 1992 election, the Democrats held a 56-44 edge in senate seats. After 2008, including the two independents (Lieberman and Sanders) who caucus Democrat, and assuming Republican margins in Alaska, Oregon, Georgia and Minnesota hold, the Democrats will hold a 56-44 edge in the Senate.

After the 1992 election, the Democrats held a 259-176 edge in the House. After 2008, it currently looks like the Democrats will hold about 252 seats in the House - there are a few races still hanging that could add a couple more seats to their margin.

After the 1992 election, the Democrats held a 27-21 advantage in governorships, with two liberal independents. After the 2008 elections, the Democrats hold a 29-21 edge in governorships.

In short, the party split in federal offices and governorships as we enter 2009 will be almost exactly what it was entering 1993.

Of course, there are differences - the Republicans actually gained 9 House seats and broke even in the Senate races in 1992, for example. But my simple point is that Republicans, though we took a thumping last night and are clearly in minority status, retain a considerable base from which to mount a comeback - indeed, a base almost identical to that held two years before the smashing election victories of 1994. And last night was not the complete wipe-out some feared. Most people thought the Democrats would win at least 57 or 58 senate seats. Most predictions I saw had the Democrats gaining closer to 30 House seats, not 20. A slightly better showing in Washington and North Carolina and the GOP could have actually gained a governorship last night. I haven’t been able to compare all the state legislative results, but again, it wasn’t a total blow out last night: Republicans took control of legislative chambers in Oklahoma, in Tennessee, maybe North Carolina. I don’t know where all else we had bright spots, but I’m sure their were many - for example, efforts to target two GOP Justices on the Ohio Supreme Court failed miserably, and the Court remains 7-0 Republican.

We’ll save for later discussion of how to best go about recreating a 1994 type win for 2010. Obviously, there are underlying facts that make 2008 different from 2009, some for the better, some for worse. But for now, just use these numbers to take heart. We’ve been here before, and come roaring back.

I respect the folks responding to Reason, and many of them I know personally and consider friends. But when I read the infatuation of these libertarians with Barack Obama, I simply have to conclude that they are not thinking seriously.

For example, one common reason for the choice was to “punish” Republicans. Science fiction writer John Scalzi typifies this sentiment: “I think the GOP need [sic] a moment or two in the Time Out corner, don’t you?” Ron Bailey says, “The Republicans must be punished and punished hard.” Author David Brin argues that if the GOP is “utterly … sent into exile,” then, “perhaps sincere men and women may remember Barry Goldwater and resurrect some kind of healthy, libertarian Conservatism.”

Let’s leave aside the question of which party could really stand for some time in time out (Us!? What about them!!) The problem with this theory is that such “punishment” simply doesn’t yield the desired results.

**Historically, parties that suffer major defeats at the polls move away from ideological purity. When Reagan blasted Mondale in 1984, the Democrats moved not to the left, but to the technocrat Dukakis in 1988 and then to the still more moderate DLC leader Clinton in 1992. When Nixon thumped McGovern in 1972, the Democrats did not become more pure, but nominated the hapless moderate Jimmy Carter in 1976. Republicans remember 1964 as the year that paved the way for Reagan, but they forget that Reagan’s election did not come for another 16 years. Many young Reaganites may have cut their teeth in the Goldwater campaign, but the campaign did not move the party’s standard bearers to the right, and the thumping Goldwater absorbed in 1964 probably kept Reagan from being the nominee in 1976, if not sooner. In 1966 the party made big gains, but for the most part not behind conservatives (despite Reagan’s California gubernatorial win), but behind moderates such as Illinois’s Charles Percy, Everett Brooke of Massachusetts, and Oregon’s Mark Hatfield in the Senate, George H. W. Bush in the House, and Governors such as Walter Hickel of Alaska and Ray Shafer of Pennsylvania, not to mention big reelection wins by moderate governors such as George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller. In 1968 the party rejected Reagan for president in favor of the more moderate Nixon, and in 1976 it rejected Reagan again, for the more moderate Gerry Ford.

Moreover, it is not only the losing party that draws lessons from an
election. The winning party does, too. What lessons will the Democrats draw
from a landslide win? I suggest it is not going to be that they moderate
their pursuit of socialized medicine, a windfall profits tax on oil, union “card-check” legislation, anti-trade sentiments, or any other of the thoroughly un-libertarian policies that dominate the Democratic party.

The GOP needs to be punished, eh? Really? How many times did we hear this same thing two years ago? How has that worked out, huh? Most of these same libertarians, for example, opposed the financial bailout. Hey, maybe with another twenty conservative Republicans in Congress, that bailout would have failed. Do they really think Congress can’t cut spending because there are too few Democrats?

From a policy standpoint, it is very hard to see that Obama offers libertarians anything. And in those same Reason predictions, my old high school classmate Tim Slagle – one of the funniest political comics in America - makes a huge point:

With the Federal Government holding so many banks and a lot of the mortgages right now, I think it’s important to vote for somebody who at least has the intention of giving everything back to the private sector. I see no inclination for Obama to do that. In fact it would not surprise me, to see him calling for more nationalization in his first term.

This is something Reason’s Obamanauts seem to be missing. The reasons given for selecting Obama range from trite (“I believe in hope and change and unicorns;” “he’s the coolest to watch on television;” “has run a less brain-dead, faux-populist campaign than the Republican”) to, it strikes me, wildly out of proportion – usually a vague reference to “civil rights” as if the U.S. were in some sort of police state. But the changes that could come with Obama – nationalized health care in particular – will be very hard ever to repeal.

It is no secret that libertarians in particular are pretty disgusted with the GOP, but I am hopeful that now, late in the day, libertarians may be figuring out what an Obama presidency with a Democratic congress would really mean for liberty. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Todd Zywicki notes a,

general perception among libertarians that there is really no difference between McCain and Obama … . McCain and Obama both are pretty statist, Obama moreso on the economy, McCain moreso on foreign policy. And McCain-Feingold is a true abomination. In which case it is a toss-up… .,”

Zywicki admits that that’s where he was, until recently.

I have slowly come to the conclusion that … Obama really is much, much worse than I realized for a long time. Maybe I’m just slower at this than others, but it really took a long for it to sink in to me exactly how far left Obama really is. On every single issue that I am aware of, he seems to be at the far left end of the Democratic Party spectrum. I mean really out there.

Zywicki notes a complacency – one that I find seems to be affecting many of doctors, small business owners, and other traditionally limited-government conservatives now supporting Obama:

Given the history of the world over the past 25 years I think I just had assumed that no serious politician or thinker would in this day and age hold the sorts of views that Obama seems to hold. Raising taxes in a recession, protectionism, abolition of the secret ballot for union elections, big spending increases, nationalized health care, and most appallingly (to my mind) the potential reimposition of the “Fairness Doctrine”–I mean this is pretty serious stuff. And when combined with a Democratic Congress, I think we may be talking about (to use Thomas Sowell’s recent phrase) a ‘point of no return.’ I guess I just assumed that Obama would be sort of Bill Clintonish–”the era of big government is over” and all that stuff. That he would have absorbed the basic insights of recent decades on taxes, trade, regulation, etc.

Zywicki concludes:

from what I can tell none of those libertarians or conservatives who are Obama supporters are attracted to him because of his positions (other than those who care strongly about the Iraq war and foreign policy), but rather because of who he is. Obama is a compelling personality. But in reading these encomiums to him, I haven’t seen any explanation as to how Obama’s policies on tax, trade, spending, or regulatory would be friendlier to individual liberty than what is likely to be McCain’s … . As someone observed somewhere recently, this is about the first time in history that you have endorsements from people who endorse Obama on the hope that he won’t do what he says he’ll do rather than because of what he says he’ll do.

Meanwhile, another longtime libertarian friend, David Bernstein, is issuing a similar warning at Volokh Conspiracy. Bernstein places an emphasis on judicial appointments, writing:

Libertarians have been heavily involved in some of the most important constitutional Supreme Court litigation of the last two decades, either in terms of bringing the case, being among the most important advocates of one side’s constitutional theory, or both. Among the cases in this category are Lopez, Morrison, Boy Scouts v. Dale, U.S. Term Limits, Grutter, Gratz, Kelo, Raich, Heller, and probably a few more that I’m not thinking of offhand. With the minor exception of Justice Breyers’ vote in Gratz, in each of these cases, the ONLY votes the libertarian side received were from Republican appointees, and all of the Democrat appointees, plus the more liberal Republican appointees, ALWAYS voted against the libertarian side. The latter did so even in cases in which their political preferences were either irrelevant (Term Limits), or should have led them to sympathize with the plaintiff (Lopez, Kelo, Raich).

Bernstein also notes that McCain is, at least these last few weeks,

running the most rhetorically libertarian presidential campaign I can remember since Reagan’s 1980 campaign. Every time I hear a clip on the news, he’s denouncing Obama for being a big spender and a taxer. He pledges to freeze most federal spending, and to take on entitlements and the grotesque reverse Robin Hood farm programs that Obama and almost all Congressional Democrats support. If he pulls out a victory, it will be seen as a stunning come from behind victory for those ideas. If he loses, and especially if loses badly, it will look like Americans are okay with “spreading the wealth.”

I am really pleased to see guys like Todd and David voicing this stuff, and I hope the more cavalier libertarians at Reason and elsewhere are taking note.