Two Columns

Lots of truths in this week's Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer columns about Tuesday's election.

First Peggy:

A president has only so much time. Mr. Obama gives a lot of his to health care. But the majority of voters in New Jersey and Virginia told pollsters they were primarily worried about joblessness and the economy. They're on another path, and they don't like the path he's chosen. A majority in a Gallup poll out Wednesday said they now think the president governs from the left, not the middle. The majority did not expect that a year ago.

The president chose promises made before the recession fully took hold, rather than more pressing and pertinent public concerns. In the language of marketing that has become the language of politics he thereby, in his first year, damaged his brand.

I think that is true. Voters don't like the health care proposals, they don't like the spending, they don't like the unemployment rate, they don't like ethically challenged incumbents, and they don't like it when they are ignored.

"Public opinion is everything," Lincoln is said to have said. It is. It can be changed and it can be shaped, but it always has to be listened to. This White House has gotten bad at listening. It paid the price for that on Tuesday.

I agree that the election wasn't primarily anti-Obama, but I don't agree that it was just anti-incumbent. Just twelve short months after "hope and change" voters are still hoping for change. It just wasn't delivered, as promised, in 2008.

As for Krauthammer, he contends the results of the election proves that last year's premise of the a major realignment in American politics was little more than fallacy. He points out that weak candidates weren't the problem, like the Dems maintain--Deeds and McDonnell nearly tied for years ago in the AG race.

Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the “rump” rebelled. It’s the natural reaction of a center-right country to a governing party’s seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election — and of the mandate it allegedly bestowed — is the fundamental cause of the Democratic debacle of 2009.

This misreading of the mandate caused the problem. This is a center-right country. Perhaps all of those voters who didn't show up this year are all liberal, young, and make this less center-right than the pollsters demonstrate. But they didn't show up. Last year was about the cult of Obama, and not some transcendence of the liberal-progressive politics that Nancey Pelosi seems to think governs this country.

The Maine vote against gay marriage--60% turnout, mind you--also indicates that this liberal progressiveness may be overstated. And when you don't turnout to vote, like 40% didn't, then it is really overstated.

And I even thought a year ago that politics is politics...incumbents get arrogant and get blamed, parties swap sides, you find your beliefs again when you are on the sidelines. Politics is cyclical, and no matter what anyone thinks, nothing is permanent.

Let's see what 2010 brings. I'm going to prognosticate now that many Dems will lose their seats in the House, even if they don't lose the majority, several governors will go down, and perhaps Harry Reid will suffer the same fate as Tom Daschle. But a lot can happen in twelve months--just look at this past year.