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There are some basic facts that cannot be ignored. Barack Obama campaigned heavily for Jon Corzine in New Jersey, the incumbent Democrat governor and former senator. The president also campaigned for Creigh Deeds in Virginia. Both lost, and in Virginia, the Democrats lost all the way down the ticket. The only place the Democrats won on Tuesday was where Barack Obama did not campaign, New York’s 23rd congressional district.  Even there, if the vote of the Republican and Conservative Party had been combined, and the Republican nominee had not thrown her support behind the Democrat, it would have been a sweeping loss for the Democrats all around.

To be fair in New Jersey, Corzine appeared to be his own worst enemy. Usually reliable Democrat counties did not turn out due to Corzine’s lack of popularity within his own base. That lack of popularity spilled over into the independent vote as well and fueled voters’ turn toward Chris Christie, his Republican challenger. Corzine failed to attract the independent vote and the black vote.  In Newark, Corzine received one-third fewer votes than Senator Frank Lautenberg did last year. Both Lautenberg’s Republican challenger and Christie got about the same number of votes. Even worse, Obama stumped for Corzine in Newark on Sunday before the election ( for more on the New Jersey election, go here).

In Virginia, the White House was less committed though Obama did make appearances for the Democrat candidate; however, Obama won the commonwealth by six points in 2008, again largely because of a high turnout in new and independent voters and black voters. None of these groups that made the Obama presidency possible came out for either Democrat gubernatorial candidate, and neither of the other two statewide races that were on the ballot in Virginia.  In fact, the Virginia results were an old-school drubbing and much less interesting than New Jersey.

The White House plainly thought they could make a difference in both New Jersey and Virginia, and did not figure they had a shot at New York 23, which had been in GOP hands since the War Between the States  (Joe Biden was sent apparently because the White House could not spare the gardener).  To top that off, the Democrat National Committee poured $10 million into the two governor races. This was not done without White House approval.

The results may mean less for 2010 generally than it does internally for the Obama campaign/administration.  They realize now more than anyone that the president’s political power is limited, and that what happened in 2008 may be an isolated incident, a strike of political lightning, where a bad Republican candidate and a coalition primed by platitudinal rhetoric made for the perfect electoral storm.  Clearly, Obama’s popularity could not bring victory to a lame candidate in a state he won by 18 points a mere year ago. Perhaps Corzine was too far gone, but the groups Obama so brilliantly motivated to the polls in 2008 acted as if no one told them there was an election going on in 2009.  It wasn’t as if the New Jersey election was entirely local, either – over half of those  exit polled said the direction of the national economy concerned them greatly, and 61% of those voted for Christie.  Also, 75% of those who voted for Corzine approved of the job Obama was doing, while 88% of the those who voted for Christie viewed Obama disapprovingly. In short, the approval rating for Obama in New Jersey based on the exit polls and poll results between Christie and Corzine works out to about 41%.  As in, this is Obama’s approval rating among those who vote in elections where Obama is not the candidate on the ballot in heavily Democrat states.

So, we may not be able to say that New Jersey and Virginia will predict any sort of results in 2010, but the New Jersey exit polls evidence the lack of political clout Barack Obama now possesses and how irrelevant he was in the voters’ minds in New Jersey on Tuesday.  Based on the exit poll results, he very much was a negative factor to Corzine’s reelection bid, neutral at best. That his agenda is completely bogged down in his own party in Washington, DC, shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The term “saved or created” in relation to jobs in the American economy is already wryly looked upon by many professional observers. Well, the savvy ones, anyway. It ought to be the string that unravels the whole fairy tail surround the White House’s economic policy.  Caroline Baum nicely dissects the ridiculousness that is the Obama economic plan.

But let’s get back to the phrase “saved or created”, which will eventually go down as the most hackneyed, disingenuous, silly political phrase ever concocted. One cannot measure the former, and because we are losing jobs, it is impossible to attribute any metric to the latter. Adding absurdity to fantasy, the White House has been caught fudging even the imaginary job numbers. Depending on the day, they have “saved or created” [snicker] 1.5 million jobs.  However, the proverbial political hand has been caught in reality’s cookie jar: the estimates have been made of whole cloth, and it is the president’s own bureaucracy that is calling the administration out.

The White House seized on an initial report from a government oversight board weeks ago that claimed federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs. The administration said the number was evidence that the stimulus program had exceeded early expectations toward reaching the president’s promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

But the 30,000 figure is overstated by thousands — at the very least by nearly 5,000, or one in six, based on AP’s limited review of some of the contracts — because some federal agencies and recipients of the money provided incorrect job counts. The review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs were credited to stimulus spending when, in fact, none were produced.

Not so fast, Lee Harvey.

Anyone with half a firing neuron could have predicted the “stimulus” was a going to be a very expensive joke.  The reports are confirming the punch line.  If the stimulus was thought and planned out, the administration would have no need to oversell it. Until the currency is strengthened and the financial system is completely stabilized, it is all a charade anyway.   Tax cuts for those who actually create jobs is the only fiscal answer to the economy’s woes.

Gee, now I”M being delusional.

“I really think you need to expect and can treat these $1 billion to $1.1 billion in base reductions … as permanent,” said Jim White, executive director of the legislature’s Fiscal Review Committee, told House leaders on Thursday. “State government is going to be smaller and different after we complete this budget year.”

Of course, if government spending had not grown absurdly to begin with, this story wouldn’t even be a story. In light of this good news, former House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh calls for …  revenue enhancement?

“No one has got the backbone or the guts to talk about revenue enhancement,” Rep. Naifeh complained. “That’s what we need to at least explore.”

House Budget Subcommittee Chairman Harry Tindell, D-Knoxville, said the meeting’s purpose “is not to pave the way for such action. It is to educate and inform members.”

Rep. Williams said “our whole country is in a deep recession. I don’t feel this is the time to try to increase our revenues with any type of higher taxes.”

Raising taxes takes backbone? Au contraire, tax increases are the first refuge of the creatively deficient.

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Adding to the weirdness of it all, the news of Obama’s message leaked just as he is poised to spend three days in New York, including an upstate swing where he will be greeted at Albany International Airport by none other than David Paterson.

“This couldn’t wait until next week after the President left New York?” asked one incredulous Democratic operative. “The whole thing was sloppy.”

A source involved with the administration’s deliberations over how to handle Paterson admitted the way this played out was not ideal, but insisted the short-term mess is worth the long-term gain.

“We needed to send a message to Rudy Giuliani that if he decides to jump in [to the governor's race], it won’t be against this dysfunctional candidate,” the source said. “Let’s be clear: We don’t need a prominent Republican hectoring us from a blue state.”

It’s almost as if he actually does wish he had been elected dog catcher instead of POTUS.

, but hardly is ever a real problem.  Seldom is there a precinct in the county that would make a difference for a Republican running for office. We have one State House seat, a sliver of a State Senate seat, no chance ever at a congressional seat (you people fighting tooth and nail to win the Republican nomination for the 5th need to find a hobby…), and are a safe statewide Republican state. Maybe it could have mattered a little in the Bob Corker / Harold Ford, Jr. 2006 race, but that would be the rare exception.

I was part of the certified roving GOP legal team in Davidson County in 2004, checking voting locations, generally monitoring, etc. But, there was nothing that could be lost – of course, if there were, there were quite a few voting locales that would have been instantly shut down for the looseness that was going on. Ray Barrett is right, though. You’re going to be hard pressed to find a lot of good people who are willing to work a 16 hour day for a Benjamin.

Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday blasted U.S. plans to overhaul the setup for a missile defense shield in Europe, calling the Obama administration’s intentions “anti-Iranian,” state-run media reported.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also called Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions — which Tehran says are only for energy purposes — “purely a fabrication by the United States,” according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

“This is something that is in the doctrine of anti-Iranianism, since the policy and the 30-year-old history of the Islamic Republic has proven that Iran wants to live in peace and under the spirit of equality and fraternity, with its Muslim neighbors and the rest of the world,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

Apparently, Obama’s alternate idea of maintaining only a sea based missile shield is not enough for the Iranians.  The overall lesson here is that nothing is going to placate the Iranian leadership, so why bother? Even larger, however, we have followed a policy path regarding the European missile shield (which Bush offered to allow the Russians to be involved with, if one remembers) that spits upon our most steadfast allies on the continent.  Russia needs the West and higher energy prices more than the West needs them. The Russians were already offered a place at the missile shield table – the least the White House could have done is extracted some energy concessions from the Russians in exchange for abandoning the land-based missile shield project.

As long as they are eminentialy qualified, diversify all you want. In this case, both these women more than meet the standard.

Facing a recall election to keep her District 5 Metro Council seat, Rex really believes that Pam Murray needs all the extra attention she can get.

That must be why, when Council was honoring the 100th birthday of the NAACP at its last meeting, Murray inexplicably bumped area Chapter President Marilyn Robinson away from the podium and gave a weird speech about the NAACP making her what she is today.

It didn’t help Kanye West when he snatched the microphone from Taylor Swift, and, if you ask Rex, the camera grab didn’t help Murray any either. It did make for equally uncomfortable television though.

I don’t think you can get recalled from the Metro Council for having no class. Then again, maybe you can.

.  Bush was right about one thing – Sarah Palin

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I was about to be engulfed by a tidal wave of Palin euphoria when someone—someone I didn’t expect—planted my feet back on the ground. After Palin’s selection was announced, the same people who demanded I acknowledge the brilliance of McCain’s choice expected the president to join them in their high-fiving tizzy. It was clear, though, that the president, ever the skilled politician, had concerns about the choice of Palin, which he called “interesting.” That was the equivalent of calling a fireworks display “satisfactory.”

“I’m trying to remember if I’ve met her before. I’m sure I must have.” His eyes twinkled, then he asked, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”

Everyone in the room seemed to look at him in horror, their mouths agape. When Ed told him that conservatives were greeting the choice enthusiastically, he replied, “Look, I’m a team player, I’m on board.” He thought about it for a minute. “She’s interesting,” he said again. “You know, just wait a few days until the bloom is off the rose.” Then he made a very smart assessment.

“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.” It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great, every Republican was a genius, and McCain was the hope of the world because, well, because he chose to be a member of our party.

You betcha. At least she’s gained more experience as the governor of Guam. No, wait …

So, it must seem, the president thinks.  For a limited time only, I’ve got two very important words for the White House that no one in the strategy room seems to know:  “over exposure”.  Live it. Learn it. Avoid it.

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