Ruminations on the Recent Election

A few thoughts about the election last night. First, there is the old axiom that all politics is local. Very true, and one of the reasons that decentralized government is the best form of governance. It was comical to hear hard-core liberals last night pulling out this card. "This has no bearing on the President as all politics are local." If they really believed it, than they would be for a smaller central government and more power in the hands of the state and local governments. But I digress. Some interesting polling data I saw this morning in the New York Times caught my eye. The split in party affiliation is 33% Democrat, 37% Republican and 30% independent.

Pct. of voters Deeds McDonnell
33% Democrat 93% 7%
37% Republican 4% 96%
30% Independent or other 33% 66%

Deeds won 93% of Democrats, 4% of Republicans and 33% of independents. The figure that is not getting attention, and should is the 7% of the Democrat vote that McDonnell was able to siphon off. Almost 1 in 10 democrats decided to vote for the Republican in a state that all of the experts say is trending from purple to blue. McDonnell ran a positive, results oriented campaign and ended up winning big. Bob McDonnell won Virginia, my home state by 18 points. Republicans and conservatives need to run positive results oriented campaigns if they want to win in 2010. I am all for conservative insurgencies in primaries to let the squishes know who is paying them, but we need to focus on results oriented policies if their is to be another Republican revolution in 2010. We can't simply run against the party in power. This is a good start.