Republicans Resurgent?

Tuesday's election results were discouraging. But not for the reasons the Republican Party, or Fox News, or indeed most media outlets want you to believe. The results don't demonstrate the resurgence of the Republican Party. In fact, the special election to fill the vacant seat for the U.S. House of Representatives held in New York's 23rd congressional district showed how bad things are in the Republican Party. The teabagger candidate, Doug Hoffman, backed by Sarah Palin and the right-wing of her party, lost to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, who will be the first Democrat to occupy the seat since 1993. The Hoffman-Owens match-up was set up when Hoffman drove the Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, from the race. What happened in New York's 23rd district will happen again and again in the next few years - extreme right-wing ideologues will run in primaries, or as third party candidates, driving Republican politicians from the political process and turning off independents. The Republican party has become a species that eats its own kind. Characteristically, according to science, animals that eat their young tend to be lower order beasties. When mammals engage in cannibalism, it is usual because they are in great distress, pushed into eating their own because of scarcity or other environmental stresses. That's the case here. My last posting compared Bushies to reptiles. The rest of the party may not have descended as far down the de-evolutionary ladder, but Republicans are clearly in trouble.

What can we learn from Republican wins in the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the defeat of a same-sex marriage measure in Maine? Simple: If we don't turn out, Democrats lose. We saw a remarkable number of voters turn out a year ago to elect Barack Obama. I was part of that, participating in get out the vote efforts in Indiana - Indiana! - a state Obama just won. This year, all of these voters stayed home. In New Jersey on Tuesday, for example, fewer voters than ever turned out, and the Democratic incumbent, John Corzine, just lost. Corzine had a lot going against him - his state had to cut many services, raise some taxes, and he's a Wall Street big shot in a year Wall Street big shots aren't especially loved. But it's not like he's a black first-term Senator named Barack Hussein Obama. I mean, geez.

I admit, I was inappropriately euphoric after Obama won last year, imagining a transformed political map where Republicans, much like dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic, were left huddled in a few remaining niches, waiting for the glaciers to roll in and their kind to be eradicated forever. But Democrats aren't as relentless as ice ages. We're more like Spring in Chicago. You can't quite be sure we're here.

What happened? I think we forgot the number one lesson from Obama's victory: people influence people. And as I argued a year ago, Democrats need to build a machine that gives the professionals some work to do - both in government and elections - and then asks us to pitch in, influencing those around us and building momentum for change. Instead, what we see from all over is whining. "Obama didn't campaign for us," Democrats in New York cried. Democratic voters reported apathy because Obama hasn't transformed America with his magic. Hey folks: transformative work is done with our hands, not through magic. The difference, I think, is between the Jewish understanding that the world is saved by and through our efforts, and the hopes of messianic religions, that hope for a deity who will arrive and bring about heaven on Earth. My mother-in-law is right: we didn't elect a messiah. GET TO WORK PEOPLE! Show up at the polls. Volunteer for candidates. Donate to elections and political causes you care about. In other words: do everything you did in 2008.

The Yankees won the World Series yesterday. Yeaaaa! I lived in New York for 5 years. I love the Yankees (maybe not as much as the Indians and the White Sox, but a lot). I have friends who hate the Yankees. They despise the fact that the Yankees reload with talent every year. They complain about all the money the team has to spend. Here's what I think is going on: as Democrats, they just don't understand a team that wants to win every year, and is willing to do what is necessary to do it.