http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2010188261_generalelectionresults09.html?appSession=129116246540953

http://centralmaine.mainetoday.com/election_results.html

Any thoughts, RBC?

As to affluent suburban voters. First, most suburban voters are not really affluent — not affluent enough to afford private schools, and I suspect, at least in Virginia, that the governor is going to run into a buzzsaw as he tries to address budget issues by, essentially, cutting public school funding. I am still amazed that Creigh Deeds failed to smoke McDonnell out on this. If you read closely, McDonnell basically plans to spend the same pot of money twice — somehow, funding transportation with funds heretofore earmarked for education, but without cutting education. Suburban voters may not use Medicaid, they may not care about public transportation(though don’t bet on that in suburban Northern Virginia), but they sure as hell want good schools. And unlike NJ, Virginia really doesn’t have “too many” governmental units. It’s already pretty streamlined.

This is a story that is never finally over. I guess we’ll see.

One of the striking things is how deeply unpopular gay marriage is. You’ll notice that none of the major GOP contenders invests much in anti-gay proposals, as I suppose they figure that once gay marriage or repeal of dadt is brought in by the courts or whatever, gay issues will disappear from the agenda.

The “marijuana” issue is a bit weird, but I wouldn’t over-state the above. This happened in an off-year, meaning that the people who were likely to show up to vote tend to be either people with a serious ideological stake in this (religious and pro-gay rights voters), or older people (who tend to be much less likely to support gay marriage).

The main problem is that there’s a major generational gap on the issue. Younger people are much more likely to support gay marriage than older folks, but unfortunately older folks tend to vote in greater proportion to their number.

Of some importance in the New York results are GOP inroads in Westchester and Nassau Counties. My prediction is that the GOP will be revived by the more affluent suburbanites returning to the GOP fold after a few cycles in the Democratic fold mainly due to redistributionist Democratic policies. After 2008, every right-wing pundit trotted out his Rx for the GOP which turned out to be that the GOP must embrace the pundit’s pet initiatives. We can only wait and see what portions of the electorate are willing to play the field. Here, the Democratic interest groups that were muzzled during the Clinton years immediately pulled out their laundry lists, which involve serious redistribution.

As to the social issues, I do not believe it is necessary for the GOP to abandon its stance as the party of social conservatism in order to win among these more affluent voters. Charges of extremism do not result from policy stances, but from social identity. Instead of dropping their stances on the issues, what is necessary is to recruit candidates who aren’t social outsiders. Especially in congressional and local and state races, people vote their (overlapping and possibly contradictory) identities in a manner that is not easily explained by policy stances. My old district used to be represented by Jack Quinn, who was often described as a “moderate” Republican even though he had a precisely 0% NARAL score. http://www.ontheissues.org/NY/Jack_Quinn_Abortion.htm He won because he won lots of votes among South Buffalo Irish Democrats.

Unfortunately, the fairly close loss, while it rationally establishes that, leaves enough weasel room that the GOP establishment will deny this, and will go on doing what they can to foist candidates like Scozzafafa on the base: Not the candidates it’s necessary to run, but the sort of candidates that establishment likes.

To the extent outside conservatives intervened pour encourager les autres, it won’t much matter to them that Hoffman didn’t win. It was only necessary that Scozzafava should lose. Other Republican candidates who might have been tempted to drift toward the center still have been reminded that if they do, they’ll be punished for it in their primaries, which is where, in middling districts, the party right has always exercised its power – “like a pest in the street full of men.”