Election Day 2009

Posted by Elmer on November 4, 2009 under How | Be the First to Comment

Election Day 2009 brought some good news and presented us with a clearer picture of some of our struggles facing our nation. It showed us that a candidate does not have to run away from conservative values to defeat liberal opponents. We saw that when conservative values are presented in a logical and coherent manner, they can carry the day and and find their way into our government. All this is overlaid on an atmosphere of fear and frustration with liberal expansion and intrusion into the lives of individual citizens.

Looking first at my home state of Virginia, Republicans won with a trio of conservatives ranging from the real deal, Attorney General elect Ken Cuccinelli whose campaign adopted the Gadsden flag as its unofficial symbol to Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling to Governor Bob McDonnell, who is still a good man though not quite what he once was as far as strength of his convictions.

I’m expecting great things from this team, although I’m sure I’ll be disappointed in some areas, but feel we have a great chance for needed progress… and I’m looking for the new Attorney General to provide both the moral compass to the administration and a thorn in the side of the Obama administration as it continues its power grab at the expense of the good citizens of the commonwealth. He is one to watch for the future… and on top of this the team carried four more delegates into the General Assembly.

The New Jersey race was said to revolve around jobs and corruption. If this is the case, especially with corruption, it is surprising that the Democrat did not win, as they are so good at it… unless, it would be possible that the people of the garden state were tired of living in Soprano land. And they picked Chris Christie who, as a federal prosecutor, put somewhere around one hundred and thirty political types behind bars. For that alone, he deserves to be put in a position of authority and honor. The people of New Jersey, my former home state for eight years, were looking for change, but this time they did not see things through Obama’s rosy promises… they wanted a change back to sanity.

What we saw with Christie’s win is that even where the statists have control, there is hope. There is no reason to think we can’t move forward… there is hope, if we are willing to act on it.

The downer of the evening was the loss of Doug Hoffman in upstate New York. He came from being an uncharismatic unknown to within a few percentage points of winning a seat in congress. His case illustrates several problems that we can hope will be studied and resolved.

First was the hubris of eleven unit chairman who took upon themselves the task of selecting a candidate to represent the party. There are some exceptions, but in many cases party leadership tends to be more “moderate” (read liberal) than the rank and file party membership. This is in some ways, I believe, due to the differences in priorities. One may be a party operative and be conservative. However they will not come to the same conclusions as a conservative/libertarian who happens to be involved with the party. Compromises ensue and sometimes values are set aside for the “good of the party”.

This time, the “good of the party” called for nominating a candidate with political connections rather than an understanding of the people. The people spoke and the anointed candidate dropped out, endorsing the Democrat. Not being from the area, I can’t say if this was with the blessing of the powers that be. I do know that there was a day before the endorsement… time enough for consideration and discussion about ways to put this upstart outsider in his place. Whatever went on behind closed doors, it was a terrible example of collusion between the two parties to the detriment of the people. This proved what the rank and file Republicans had been saying… she was not the candidate for them. Unfortunately this chaos in their party combined with about five thousand people who did not get the memo about Scozzafava’s campain suspension cost the good citizens of New York’s 23rd district of suitable representation.

As the days and weeks pass, there will be many more lessons to be learned from Election Day 2009, but among them will be confirmation that the tea party people need to gain control of the party since fussing from the outside just is not getting the job done.