Cook on Virginia and Beyond

Charlie Cook warns the Democrats that Virginia was no flash in the pan:

It is very convenient for Democrats to blame (Democratic candidate Creigh) Deeds and his campaign for a debacle that sets the party back years in the state, certainly easier than facing inconvenient truths.

The two key variables in this race were the GOP nominee, Attorney General Bob McDonnell, and the year -- a year when Democrats are facing a headwind, not a tailwind. As my colleague Ron Brownstein noted in his column in last week's National Journal: "The Democratic decline among independents should really be seen as part of the party's dismal overall showing among whites. Both Deeds and Corzine retained commanding support among minority voters. But each man won only about one-third of whites, much less than [President] Obama in those states."

Brownstein went on to point out that "Deeds and Corzine each won fewer than three in 10 whites without a college education, and just one-third of white seniors," and that both lost whites under 30, and received less than 30 percent of the vote among white independents and less than 40 percent among college-educated whites.

Brownstein concluded that the results "parallel those in national polls showing most whites moving toward a Ross Perot-like skepticism about Washington, even as minorities express more comfort with an enlarged federal role. That divergence looms as an ominously destabilizing force."

Virginia has become a swing state and, in 2009, it swung. Blaming the outcome on Deeds, a guy who would likely have beaten a weaker candidate or won in a better year for Democrats, is ignoring important lessons.

For Republicans, the lesson of Virginia was that you can nominate a staunch conservative and win, if that conservative works hard to project a mainstream, nonthreatening campaign. McDonnell's strategists point to a green jobs ad, run early on, as an example of their efforts to prevent him from being pigeonholed as another conservative living in the past. This served him well when he was hit with charges related to his master's thesis, attacks that might well have worked had he not inoculated himself early on.

Next year's voters will likely be older and whiter than in 2008. Last year, half the voters were 44 years of age or younger, but this year in New Jersey and Virginia, that group constituted only a third.

In 2008, these older and whiter voters might have been somewhat disillusioned with years of a GOP Congress and George W. Bush but were not specific about the change they were voting for.

This same group now seems to be growing increasingly concerned about the agenda of Obama and congressional Democrats.

A Democratic consultant recently pointed to Warner's tenure as governor of Virginia, before his election to the Senate. Soon after Warner took over as governor, he embarked on a campaign to streamline state government and cut costs. It was only after a couple of years of establishing his ability to look after the taxpayers' money that he sought the largest tax increase in the commonwealth's history, one that paid for the greatest expansion in spending on K-12 education. He went on to earn accolades as running one of the best-managed states.

Obama and Democrats are getting squeezed and face a paradox. Voters want the government to do more to turn the economy around and create jobs, but they are also concerned about the size and scope of government and deficit spending.

They believe Obama and congressional Democrats are focusing on issues beyond the economy and jobs, priorities that seem mismatched for a 2010 midterm electorate.

Source: Cook's weekly email newspaper; go here.