“The Sky is Falling. The Sky is Falling.” – I can imagine a bunch of Chicken Little’s running around K Street and Capitol Hill last night after the dust settled from yesterday’s primaries. There is one problem with the doom and gloom pundits who are announcing the death of the Democratic Party in May, it doesn’t add up.
What is going on? Are these election results a demonstration of anti-incumbency, anti-party, anti-Congress or anti-Obama? Let me try to explain them one by one. Anti-incumbency is about getting rid of the person holding the office. Anti-party is dissatisfaction with the party holding power. Anti-Congress is dissatisfaction of the national Legislative body as a whole. Anti-Obama, well that’s just silly, isn’t it? I’m kidding. Anti-Obama is dissatisfaction with the President.
What happened yesterday, except for the Special Election in the late Jack Murtha’s district (12-PA), was nothing more than anti-incumbency. These were primary elections that decided who the voters of their party wanted to captain the ship, not to sink the ship.
The more interesting political question is “how can Obama use this to his advantage?” Obama has to change the dialogue of the conversation to acknowledge the anti-incumbency pattern while strengthening the agenda of the Democratic Party. Obama will lose seats if Obama is the issue in November; however, the Democratic Party may stay in power if the primary outcomes can be celebrated as providing new captains to lead the ship of state to a safe harbor.
Bottom line: We will have to wait until November to find out if the Titanic has sunk and anti-incumbency translates into anti-party voting resulting in a Republican majority.
Faculty, Department of Political Science, Towson University. Graduate from Liberty University Seminary.