With Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts last week, our party’s fears of hemorrhaging House and Senate seats in the 2010 cycle were drastically exacerbated.

President Obama, who attempted to salvage Coakley’s flagging candidacy with an eleventh hour visit on the weekend proceeding Tuesday’s election, has moved to centralize control over his party’s strategy for November, recruiting former campaign manager David Plouffe to oversee all House, Governor and Senate races, apparently a slap on the wrist for DNC head Tim Kaine, who so far hasn’t enjoyed a successful tenure (as Democrats are continuously outraised by Republicans on a month-by-month basis). This is a high stakes move for a President who often prefers compromise (though largely by necessity) to rolling the dice on more controversial, left of center measures (as he proved by quickly abandoning the public option).

Brown’s victory in Massachusetts was not as much of a product of an outpouring of populist rage as it was a blatant misreading of the electorate. Coakley, though well liked as Attorney General, was hardly an inspiring candidate, and coasted on double-digit poll leads until it was far too late (refusing to engage her prolific political machine and resting on a loaded campaign war-chest). Ultimately, this blue-blooded state, though erring on the left of center, is fiercely independent politically, a spirit born from a long tradition of moderate New England Republicans (from John Chafee to William Weld) dating back well into the 19^th Century.

To paraphrase the ill-fated Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, reports of our demise are exaggerated. Still, whether you like or dislike the President’s policies, he has not proven an effective advocate for them, or for democratic candidates. He waited to play his hand in the health care debate for far too long, overseeing the process from a distance and giving the reigns to a weak democratic leadership, allowing a fringe conservative misinformation campaign from the far right destroy approval for the legislation and his presidency.

Obama has lost control of the economic debate. The question now whether or not he can win it back. The party now must decide its standing on the political spectrum going into November. The potential Senate primary matchup in New York is a microcosm of this struggle, as appointed Junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand lines up for a challenge from Harold Ford, a fiscally conservative Tennessee Democrat who migrated north following his unsuccessful run for Bill Frist’s former seat.

Gillibrand sees herself in the mold of Chuck Schumer, the liberal stalwart from New York, far more socially and fiscally left-leaning than her potential opponent. Ford this week refered to her as “parakeet,” arguing that New Yorkers are increasingly frustrated with her willingness to go ahead to with every item on Obama’s agenda and that the state needs a more independent voice in the senate. Ford instead sees himself in Bill Clinton’s mold, an extremely moderate, fiscally conservative Democrat hesitant to initiate major spending programs, and hopes the party will initiate a shift to the center in order to staunch the potential bleeding of house and senate seats in the Fall.

While Ford’s message may not be evidenced in the polls quite yet (Gillibrand still holds slim leads over Republicans George Pataki and Rudi Giuliani in most opinion polls and beats Ford by double digits), Obama’s State of the Union address Thursday will represent a massive strategic shift for the party with the President’s announcement of a spending freeze, stopping most domestic reforms for the time being.

This certainly puts the President in an awkward position, as he is becoming politically isolated from much of the liberal mainstream of his party and is unable to count on any support from the other side of the aisle (proven by John Boehner’s pre-rebuttal to the State of the Union address). Throughout the campaign he argued against freezing spending, and some of his former allies may never forgive this switch.

Obama now has let loose the dice onto the table, perhaps gambling his political future with this move. The Democratic Party faithful and the entire nation now attentively await the result.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.