Cross Posted at Media In Trouble and BlueJersey.net
Sunday talkers tried to spin last week’s election results into some sort of ominous sign for George Bush and House Republicans come 2006. Some of the Sunday talkers went so far as to say that the Corzine campaign focused on linking Doug Forrester to George Bush (citing this ad). On the surface, and in the beltway, there may very well be some sort of “Bush effect” to the Republican losses in VA, NJ, and CA. While I can’t speak for the other states, I can speak for NJ. The NJ campaign despite Doug Forrester’s fiercest attempts to the contrary, focused on issues relevant to New Jerseyans. After all, where in the Bush agenda lie property taxes, corruption, and affordable cost of living? Ignoring the obvious joke that can come of this question, the beltway talkers missed the fact that Forrester had never achieved the magical 50% barrier in the polls. As a candidate, he waffled on issue after issue, his tax plan was pie-in-the-sky, promises without substance abounded, in short… Doug Forrester didn’t loose because of George Bush, Doug Forrester lost because of Doug Forrester.
Then of course, one reads an article like this one. Where in his first post-loss interview, Doug Forrester uses the dimming spotlight to jump on the bandwagon with the rest of the Beltway Bunch and blames George W. Bush for his loss.
You know, for the party that totes personal responsibility as one of their mantras, it seems that factor is leaking out of Republicans faster than the money in the Federal Reserve. You have Karl Rove involved in leaking but not enough to invoke a resignation, you have the war in Iraq going horribly yet not horribly enough to get a resignation from the Secretary of Defense, and now you have Republican’s loosing elections but not accepting any of the blame.
Doug Forrester, sorry, you lost because you were a weak candidate, without any real plans, without any real vision, slinging slogans and insults, while being a participant in almost every corrupt behavior you seemed to denounce on the other side. Doug Forrester lost every demographic and age group from women to men and from rich white’s to poor minorities. Yes, the ad the Beltway Bunch toted did have an effect. However, if you want to analyze ads, the negative ads Forrester ran including the one that backfired had quite an effect as well.
But let’s not sell our Democrats short here. As a Bush anti-sypatico myself, I welcome any talk that Bush had an effect around the country. If anything, it generates “Republican BAD, Democrat GOOD” talk. However, the sum of the parts of the Corzine campaign were larger than any Bush effect in the New Jersey race. Jon Corzine won by toting Democratic ideals and ideas. He won toting expansion of health care coverage, better education, homeland security, embryonic stem cell research, abortion, and many many more. His liberal voting record in the Senate was welcomed by this state, a record which included a vote against the Iraq war. So perhaps the Bush effect was present on November 8th, but the Democrat effect was perhaps even more present. People are waking up to the Democratic agenda and they like snuggling up right next to it.
The time for the party of personal responsibility to start taking on some of that very ideal is long overdue. The losers in this election should look within. Doug Forrester lost this election, handily, all on his own. He would have lost it with or without the help of George Bush. Doug Forrester would have lost this election if Dwight D. Eisenhower himself came back from the dead and endorsed him.
Doug Forrester, and the national Republicans should stop blaming others for their short comings, and start blaming themselves. Besides, the “Blame Bush” line belongs to the Democrats.