Tag: Politico

Politico is out with its predictions for all 50 states, including Virginia (see below), where it has seven solid "R" (VA-01, VA-06, VA-09) or...

Speaking at the December breakfast of the Northern Virginia Democratic Business Council Friday, 3 December, at the Fairview Marriott, Jeanne Cummings of Politico gave one of her  trenchant, insightful analyses in discussing the mid-term elections, and her estimate of how it will play out heading into 2012. She believes the election was, indeed, all about Obama.  The independents turned against him in huge numbers, mainly because of the stubbornly high unemployment figures (that means, "it's the economy, stupid," although she never said it in so many words), as well as because of the number and size of the rapid-fire changes he and the Democratic Congress delivered.

The public was with Obama on the stimulus, but, beginning in June of 2009, as unemployment stayed in the 10 percent range, they began to complain, "Hey, we spent all this money on the stimulus, but nothing has improved..." Americans, said Ms. Cummings, while dealing with massive job losses, could not at the same time absorb all the changes like health care reform, Wall Street reform, and so on---- it was too much too soon The public, for example, is still convinced that Obama raised their taxes, when in fact the stimulus bill was full of tax cuts. The tax cuts were incremental, gradual, and extended over a period of time, so not only did people never actually notice them, the Democrats never explained  them to the voters. Why, asked Cummings, was the Democratic message never delivered? If this complaint about messaging sounds familiar, it should. Her answer gave some insight into how Washington works (or does not).