Four days before the last big batch of primaries for the year, anticipation of the general election is already dominating most political discussions, with President Obama’s press conference yesterday being widely viewed as an effort to “go comparative” (or negative, depending on your perspective). This tactic is designed to simultaneously energize the flagging Democratic base while convincing swing voters not to treat the election as a referendum on the status quo or on Democratic policies they may not particularly like. You can expect other Democrats to quickly follow suit.
In the welter of recent polling data, a new Allstate/National Journal survey stands out because it detects deeper and more conflicted senses of discontent that echo the sentiments associated with the Great Depression. Here’s part of Ron Brownstein’s analysis:
The grim weight of the extended slowdown, the poll suggests, is deepening the public’s divisions over government’s role in promoting prosperity and the widespread distrust of financial institutions and major companies. The survey also captures the emergence of attitudes that don’t fit easily into the platform of either political party: a prickly “America First” streak anxious about the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries and a censorious conviction that Americans summoned hard times on themselves through irresponsibility at all levels. Indeed, the belief that average Americans must manage their finances more responsibly as the economic storm lingers is one of the most powerful chords in the poll.
Whether there is some “new normal” that will guide political attitudes for years to come is one of the questions that will become urgent after November 2.
We’ll have a full preview of the September 14 primaries next Tuesday, but there are significant developments today in some of those contests. Sarah Palin has just endorsed hyper-conservative Senate challenger Christine O’Donnell, who is trying to deny congressman and former governor Mike Castle the Republican nomination in Delaware. Castle is thought to be one of the GOP’s most important recruitment successes. If he loses to O’Donnell, it will be a major triumph for the “true conservative”/Tea Party forces in the Republican Party, and would probably make Democrat Chris Coons the front-runner for a Democratic seat long thought to be lost.
Up in New Hampshire, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s once prohibitive lead for the Republican nomination to succeed Sen. Judd Gregg is also in doubt, with conservative Ovide Lamontagne surging in recent polls even as Ayotte’s negatives rise from relentless pounding by a third candidate, self-funder Bill Binnie. And in the District of Columbia, Washington mayor Adrian Fenty is in dire danger of losing re-election to District Council Chairman Vincent Gray despite generally positive ratings of the direction of the city, in a contest featuring significant racial polarization in Gray’s favor.