Dear Daniel,
The results of Tuesday's elections in Maine, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington were a mixed bag but there are some clear lessons we can learn.
- Voters rejected right-wing radicalism.
- Democrats who fail to stand up for Democratic and progressive principles fail in elections.
- The Right's lies still work.
- Despite the stinging loss for marriage equality in Maine, evidence elsewhere shows voters moving towards support of equality for all Americans.
- The Far Right strengthened its grip on the Republican Party.
- We have a lot of work to do to educate people, expose right-wing lies and counter the resurgent Right.
- The scattered results of yesterday's elections were not a referendum on President Obama and his policies.
Keep reading for a recap of Tuesday's results and more on these important lessons.
The Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia did everything he could to ensure that progressives stay home on Election Day (like saying that as governor, he would opt Virginia out of the health care "public option"). So it comes as no shock that he lost to an ultraconservative Republican who, despite being a product of Pat Robertson's Regent University and having a history of radical views, effectively portrayed himself as mainstream, barely even a Republican never mind a right-wing ideologue.
In New Jersey, embattled Governor Jon Corzine was unsuccessful in defending his incumbency against many of the problems and challenges that his state has faced.
In Maine, the still-painful wound from last year's passage of Proposition 8 in California was reopened when a majority voted to repeal legislature-passed marriage equality, relegating members of same-sex couples to second-class citizens. But in Washington, voters reaffirmed the State's domestic partnership law, protecting the rights of same-sex couples. And some smaller, but nonetheless important, victories for equality were won. In Kalamazoo, MI, an anti-discrimination ordinance was passed and openly gay candidates won local races in several good-sized cities around the country.
And in the much-watched special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District, which has had constant Republican representation going back to the 19th century, Democrat Bill Owens beat Conservative Party candidate and unabashed right-wing extremist, Doug Hoffman. The Republican candidate had to drop out of the race because her views were too moderate for national Republican leaders like Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, and opinion leaders like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh (not to mention right-wing groups like the Club for Growth which dumped $1 million into the race to help Hoffman).
The takeaways:
- Voters rejected right-wing radicalism when it was on full display by the "tea bagger" candidate -- supported by the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Palin -- in the NY-23 special election. Republican statewide candidates in Virginia were certainly representative of the Religious Right, but they successfully masked that fact, running very non-partisan, non-ideological campaigns in what seemed more like a personality contest than a critical election based on the issues. However, the Republican victory can also be attributed to the Democratic gubernatorial candidate's conservatism and unwillingness to stand up for progressive values. The campaign was not effective on many levels, but the progressive base was alienated to say the least... which brings us to the next lesson....
- Democrats need to stand up for Democratic and progressive principles. Values on the ballot drive voters to the polls, and this is particularly important in off-year and mid-term elections where base turnout is the name of the game.
With regard to the fight for LGBT equality, we can see some very specific trends.
- The Right's lies still work. In Maine, the same ridiculous scare tactics and outright lies the Right used in the California to pass Proposition 8 last year worked again.
- Voters want to support equality for all Americans, although the Right is still effective and misleading people about the marriage issue. We saw this in Washington State, as well as in: Chapel Hill, NC, which elected a gay mayor; Houston, TX (America's fourth largest city), where the leading candidate for mayor in the runoff election is openly gay; Kalamazoo, MI, which voted to protect LGBT people from discrimination; and more localities around the country.
- Much work is needed to expose the Right's fear-mongering lies AND to educate the public about why civil marriage is the only true measure of equality for same-sex couples.
And, finally, it's worth mentioning that the scattered results of yesterday's elections were not a referendum on President Obama. In fact, Obama enjoys very high approval ratings in both Virginia and New Jersey, well above the national average and well above the percentages he achieved in his election last year.
You can read a somewhat more detailed analysis of this week's election results here.
Thank you for your continued support for People For the American Way's work to expose and counter the Right.
-- Michael B. Keegan, President
"Twenty-five years ago, at the height of the AIDS crisis, there were hundreds—thousands—of gay men walking around with two or three T cells and six-months-or-less to live. The religious right was doing what it always does: it's worst, demonizing gay people, kicking us when we were down, attacking us on the airwaves and in Congress, and neglecting us to death at the White House. Those were dark days. And yet no gay man—none of those gay men with just a few months to live and nothing left to lose—picked up a gun and took at shot at Jesse Helms or Jerry Falwell. The only political assassination attempt during the Reagan years was on Reagan, of course, and it was made by a deranged straight boy who wanted to impress a girl. 
