Votes Weren't About Obama

Prez shouldn't lose sleep over defeated lackluster Dems

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 5, 2009 1:50 AM CST

(Newser) – if the votes in New Jersey and Virginia were a referendum on President Obama, then Ohio's vote for casinos must have been a referendum on health care reform and Cincinatti's public transit vote a rejection of cash-for-clunkers, smirks Gail Collins. Nearly all of Tuesday's results are being portrayed as blows to Obama, despite the president's lukewarm support for some distinctly substandard Democratic candidates, Collins notes in the New York Times.

Inconveniently for those who've decided the votes add up to an anti-Obama movement, "Obama’s party won the only two elections that actually had anything to do with the president’s agenda," with victories in the special congressional elections in New York and California.The administration needs to "shape up and completely transform the way Washington works before the next election," snaps Collins, tongue-in-cheek. "Otherwise, another governor’s head could roll."

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (1)]

"What good are coattails if they can't drag an unlovable guy from a deeply corrupt party into a second term?" smirks Gail Collins. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)

President Barack Obama speaks at James C. Wright Middle School in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

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How could (Obama) have gotten any sleep after he realized his lukewarm support of an inept candidate whose most notable claim to fame was experience in hog castration wasn't enough to ensure a Democratic victory in Virginia? - Gail Collins

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Votes Weren't About Obama