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I think Kathy Sullivan came up with the best description of New Hampshire Politics 2008 on WMUR's CloseUp show on Sunday morning. When answering a question about whether New Hampshire is now "blue," she explained that New Hampshire is "Democrat with Democrat-leaning Independents" -- sort of "leaning blue," but not quite there.
Bingo. It's not about colors, it's not about ideology, it's not about party majority (yet), it's not about coattails, it's that Democrats are holding together, and we're picking up lots of Democrat-leaning Independents. You see it by looking toward the bottom of the ballot, where Republicans did pick up some Legislative seats in some parts of the state, and held on to a core of lower-level county positions.
Nashua Telegraph Political Reporter Kevin Landrigan also hit the nail on the head, I think, when he observed that Democrats gained from the momentum of a long election season. He explained that the excitement of volunteers for Democrats was high, and we can see that in the tremendous enthusiasm by supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama leading up to the New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary on January 8th. That WAS a long season. In a very real way, Barack Obama and his supporters can thank Hillary Clinton and her supporters for his success. We were all in this together.
Going into 2010, we might not have a year and more of enthusiasm and excitement among volunteers. We're hoping for some great things by Barack Obama, but still I think we have to be concerned with what I call the "pendulum of politics." People often vote for "change," but change is a two-way street -- wait a moment and it happens. Sometimes if you like chicken but you have chicken several times for a week, you'd prefer pizza for your next meal.
Even a victory of 55% to 45%, while it sounds good, isn't secure nor permanent in the world of politics. That margin of victory means that 55 voters of every 100 voted for the winner, while 45 voters of every 100 voted for the lower. If just 6 out of every 100 voters who supported the victor changes his or her mind, the result is different. Sometimes we change our mind as to what we'll have for dinner at a restaurant the moment we sit down and look at the menu.
In other words, we can't assume that New Hampshire Democrats are in a permanent majority position -- far from it. If we want to see continued majorities in the NH House and Senate in 2010, and Democratic Party dominance in other statewide elections, I think Democrats have to act like Democrats these next two years statewide and nationally and do what voters expect us to do.
The dialogue of the next several months and the good part of the next two years will be for us to define what "Democrats acting like Democrats" means. I think nationally it means having some real health care, being sure we're essentially out of Iraq, addressing poverty in ways we haven't begun, and having an economy on the rebound. Statewide, it's solving educational inequalities, getting that dropout rate way down, and opening the dialogue about fairer taxation to fund education -- not passing a new tax, but being brave enough to talk about our options, and how to lower property taxes.
By the way, am I the only one who has wondered why Kathy Sullivan hasn't run for a political office yet, and that it's about time she does?
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