Election Day losses in Virginia and New Jersey have congressional Democrats focused like never before on jobs — their own. While the White House and party leaders are urging calm, Democratic incumbents from red states and Republican-leaning districts are anything but; Tuesday's statehouse defeats have left them acutely aware that their votes on health care reform and other major Obama initiatives could be career-enders in 2010 or beyond.
“I should be nervous,” said Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Huntsville, Ala.
Griffith said the Democratic rank and file is “very, very sensitive” to the fact that issues being pushed by party leaders “have the potential to cost some of our front-line members their seats.”
House Democrats, forced to take a tough vote on a controversial cap-and-trade climate change bill in June, may have to vote as earlier as this weekend on the even more controversial health care bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team have struggled to get moderates on board for that vote, and Tuesday's results won't make the task any easier.
“People who had weak knees before are going to have weaker knees now,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a relatively liberal congressman who seemed safe in 2010 but now thinks a Republican challenger might feel emboldened by Tuesday’s election results.
Democratic Sen. Jim Webb — who watched Republican Bob McDonnell and other statewide candidates erase years of Democratic gains in his home state of Virginia — said Tuesday’s results show that Republicans are “energized from what happened last year” but also that “people up here on our side need to get their message straighter, too.”
One of these days the moderate dems are going to figure out that they're guiding star is Lunacy.
Party leaders put their best face on TuesdayÂ’s results.
Pelosi, pointing to Democratic House victories in special elections in New York and California, said: “We won last night.”
And monkeys shooting bottle rockets may fly out my a$$.
The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid circulated an analysis arguing that “gubernatorial races are primarily about local issues,” and that it’s therefore “hard to draw any direct comparisons between what happened in New Jersey and Virginia and what will happen in Congress.”
But some Democrats werenÂ’t buying the spin.
Some? Judging by all the verdent denial, I'm sure it's all they think about. Except for Nancy, of course.
“We got walloped,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the junior Democrat from Virginia.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said it was “nonsense” to suggest that the results in New Jersey and Virginia represented a referendum on President Barack Obama. To the contrary, he argued that the results meant that Democrats should redouble their efforts to “make sure we deliver on the promises of the last election.”
But if Tuesday’s results leave red-state Democrats nervous about health care reform, a climate change bill and regulatory reform, it’s going to be harder — not easier — for Van Hollen and his leadership colleagues to develop that record of legislative accomplishment.
And thatÂ’s certainly where things seemed to be headed Wednesday. As PelosiÂ’s office ordered members to stay in town for a possible Saturday night House vote on health care, other Democrats were suggesting that it's time to take the foot off the gas.
As members came to grips with the election returns, Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. (D-Md.) said he wants “as much time as I possibly can [have] to review both sides and make the best decision I can make” on the health care bill.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a big swing vote for Democratic leaders, said Tuesday’s elections should tell Democrats that their “agenda needs to be patterned towards” the economy.
A Donk with at least half a brain!
“People need to be saying slow it down and don’t add more to the deficit,” Nelson said. “And what have many of us been talking about? We don’t want to see anything added to the deficit unless there’s cost containment.”
Is "cost containment" another way to say "We should consier our job security"?