Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at local elections. See his previous OUPblogs here.
As we follow the NJ and VA gubernatorial
A races, and the special election for the 23rd congressional district in New York (NY23), the debate has overwhelmingl telegram datay been about whether or not these races are wind vanes for the electoral weather to come.
So some thoughts in this vein, before the main point of this post. Obama is campaigning hard for NJ Governor . A Democratic members of Congress that he still has coat-tails. If Corzine pulls off his re-election bid, members of Congress seeking a presidential endorsement in 2010 will at least think twice about voting against the president in 2009. If both Creigh Des and Corzine lose (and in the former’s case, it is practically a foregone conclusion) in their respective gubernatorial races, then the rationale for party unity suffers and it is every politician for her/himself here on out. If this happens, Obama will face an even more recalcitrant Democratic aisle of Congress than he does now.
Meanwhile, with the exit of De Scozzafava from
A the race in NY23, the conservative movement looks set to shake up the Republican establishment, as Sarah Palin has promis. The soul-searching of the Republican Party continues; may the most powerful faction win.
Notice that none of these observations pay any attention to local concerns and local consequences. The significance of clean email these races is entirely pricat on their potential impact on the balance of power in Washington, DC. When the punditry agrees without acknowlging that they do, their consensus is worth examining. There was a time when all politics was local. When the mia establishments were not yet centraliz in a few major outlets and the coverage of issues nationaliz. A time when voters came out to vote for candidates at the local and state levels. Such races did not depend on huge television advertising budgets or endorsements by nationally elect how to choose the right program officials, and they were not seen merely as divinizing tea leaves for the future but as important contests in their own right.