| Nov. 5th, 2009 @ 06:06 pm Elections First |
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Current Mood:  determined
I have a lot of links to sort through, but the stuff from the elections this week most merits discussion, so that first. Two issues most interest me:
First, in Maine, voters passed Question 1, overturning a law passed by the legislature and outlawing same-sex marriage. Surprising and disappointing because I thought of Maine, being part of New England, as therefore not inclined to vote to make some of their neighbors (and their families) miserable for no benefit whatsoever. Also surprising in light of the polling. FiveThirtyEight even called it wrong (though they hedged and gave it a 30% chance of passing).
Two very good sets of commentary: Alas points out that "Maine should be the death of the claim that people don’t hate gays, they just hate being told what to do by the Courts". And this excellent entry by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) osewalrus discusses the psychological effect of the defeat. It's worth remembering that it's still just a matter of time; I don't expect a sudden uptick in old bigots' ability to sway young people's opinions.
Second, there was the very odd situation of the NY-23 Congressional special election, where the Republican candidate was displaced in the race by a Conservative Party of New York candidate, endorsed by Sarah Palin and the rest of the Tea Party mob. The Republican, Scozzafava, withdrew shortly before the election. That wasn't a "try not to split the vote" move, though, that was a "super-pissed at the Palin crowd" move, she threw her support behind the Democratic candidate. The election ended 49.2% for the Democrat, Owens, 45.2% for the Conservative, Hoffman, and 5.5% for Scozzafava (though it's not clear to view that last as in support of the Republicans over the third-party or just as protest votes against the Palinites). The Democrats are calling this a victory on account of winning, but some of the right-wingers are also calling it a victory on account of the Republicans (!) losing.
There's a lot of commentary on how this reflects the likely future of the Republican party. For decades, a small coalition of plutocrats and quasi-libertarians have strung along a much larger group of religious social conservatives (itself a creation of the Republican party, but I've linked to that essay before), promising them something substantial on the issues they really care about (gays and abortion, mostly) if they stuck around for just one more election cycle. That was effective at the start, and effective as long as the Republicans remained in power, while those legislative carrots stayed just tantalizingly out of reach. Now that the Republicans have lost control (and B. Hussein, of all people, is in the White House), what does the Religious Right have to lose? The real question is whether there will be a reversal, with the social conservatives dragging the quasi-libertarians and plutocrats along because at least the Tea Baggers aren't Democrats, or whether that tenuous coalition will just fall apart, leaving Republicans as a permanent minority. The Log Cabin Republicans and their allies should be particularly worried; "change the Republican Party from within to be more socially liberal (while remaining fiscally conservative)" was a doomed plan from the outset, but that should be even more obvious now.
Also an interesting question: Will the party leadership side with the centrists and try to pull the far-right back in line, or will they take it as an opportunity to tack right, dragging the centrists along? RNC Chair Steele, at least, seems to be going in the latter direction.
(Of course, the Democrats face some of the same pressures, lots of Democrats are far to the left of the average democratic politician and even farther to the left of the party leadership. However, like I mentioned just a few sentences ago, it's easier to make "just stick together" arguments when you're currently in power.) |
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