Pelosi's Victory, and Other Election News

THE SCRAPBOOK is pleased to see so many national Democratic leaders whistling a happy tune after last Tuesday's elections. It's always good to know that one's political opponents enjoy a rich fantasy life.

Take House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "From our perspective, we won last night," the San Francisco Democrat told reporters on the morning after. "We had one race that we were engaged in, it was in northern New York, it was a race where a Republican has held the seat since the Civil War. And we won that seat. So, from our standpoint, .  .  . a candidate was victorious who supports health care reform, and his remarks last night said this was a victory for health care reform and other initiatives for the American people."

It must have been sheer unfortunate coincidence, then, that Rep. John Adler, a New Jersey Democrat, announced on Friday that he was going to vote against Pelosi's health care bill. As the Wall Street Journal's Peter Landers noted, "Adler's state, of course, was the scene of a big Republican win this week when Chris Christie defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. Seeking his first term in Congress last year, Adler squeaked to victory with 52 percent of the vote, and he's one of the many Democratic freshmen who's vulnerable to a Republican challenge in 2010. The seat had long been held by GOP Rep. Jim Saxton who retired last year."

The governor's race in New Jersey, aside from

Meanwhile Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota also announced her opposition to Pelosi's bill on Friday, as did Idaho Democrat Walt Minnick. What an odd reaction, given their party's "victory for health care reform" in Tuesday's elections!

Michael Barone, the political analyst and Washington Examiner columnist, drilled down into the election results deeper than Pelosi must have. Among his other findings:

Bergen County, New Jersey, a 56-42 percent Corzine constituency in 2005, came within a point or two of voting for Christie.

Westchester County, New York, voted 58-42 percent for a Republican county executive, Rob Astorino, after voting almost exactly the opposite way in his race against the same candidate, Democratic incumbent Andy Spano, four years ago.

The Virginia Board of Elections results by congressional district showed that three Democrats who captured seats in 2008 by very narrow margins (the Second, Fifth, and Eleventh districts) saw their districts go to Republican Bob McDonnell by whopping margins (24 points, 22 points, and 10 points, respectively).

Barone believes this last fact will not be lost on those freshman Democrats, or presumably on other Democrats who aren't drinking the Pelosi Kool-Aid.

What happened in Westchester County, by the way, to prompt such a radical reversal? Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute has a theory that won't be welcome news to the Obama administration:

Taxes were a key issue, but so was the county's consent to what was billed as a landmark housing-reform settlement in which it agreed to arm-twist affluent towns into accepting low-income housing. Many Westchester residents were wary of the potential consequences--and downright insulted when Spano suggested that to resist the lawsuit further would be to make the generally liberal-leaning county a "symbol of racism." The federally brokered settlement is itself of interest far beyond Westchester, if only as the occasion of a truly remarkable rhetorical flourish from an Obama Administration official, HUD deputy secretary Ron Sims: "It's time to remove zip codes as a factor in the quality of life in America." It was also hailed at once in some quarters as a model for similar legal action against other suburban jurisdictions considered guilty of not being hospitable enough to low-income housing. The Westchester voter revolt .  .  . may serve as a signal to local officials elsewhere to fight, rather than roll over, when the social engineers and their lawyers come knocking.