Mark Watson

Political spin masters are gearing up to dissect Tuesday’s two gubernatorial races, in New Jersey and Virginia, and the special congressional races in New York’s 23^rd District and California’s 10^th District.

Catalyst.

All of these races are in states and congressional districts carried last year by President Obama, and many pundits will focus on whether Tuesday’s results will represent a reflection on the president’s popularity. Such focus would be the natural reaction, since New Jersey’s incumbent Democratic Governor, John Corzine, appears in serious jeopardy of garnering less than 42 percent of the vote, even though New Jersey is heavily Democratic.

After all, voters favored Obama with 57 percent in New Jersey, 53 percent in Virginia, 52 per cent in NY23 and 60 percent in California’s 10^th District.

While history reflects that it is normal for a new incumbent president’s political party to suffer in the first election after he takes office, these races carry with them a political phenomenon usually absent from such contests.

This new phenomenon could easily be called the Rick Santelli Effect.

Santelli, a former commodities trader, reports daily on financial trading from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade for CNBC. In February, Santelli bemoaned Obama’s economic policies during one of his reports.

“This is America,” he voiced loudly, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbors’ mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” Santelli rhetorically asked, “President Obama, are you listening?”

Fellow traders witnessing Santelli’s flare-up broke out in applause when Santelli invited  CNBC’s audience to join him in Chicago for the tea party he was going to host in opposition to Obama’s economic policies.

Santelli’s outburst was labeled a “rant” by crooked creek media types, and it provoked Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs to complain that Santelli didn’t know what he was talking about.

Gibbs added a comment many saw as threatening. “I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives…”

Almost immediately tea parties, began to be organized throughout the country to take place on tax day, April 15. Hundreds of Tea Parties with tens of thousands of participants voicing opposition to Obama economics took place all over the country.

The intensity of passion demonstrated that the protesters were not voicing Republican opposition to Democratic policies, but rather regular citizens expressing grave concern over what they perceived to be a trampling on fundamental constitutional principles.

Many in the crooked creek media dismissed Tea Party participation, much like they did after the 1994 election reverting Congress to Republican control for the first time in 40 years, as little more than temper tantrums.

But the uprising proved to be far from a passing event, as the spring Tea Parties led to the summer town hall meetings where legislators faced vocal opposition and pointed questions, many for the first time.

While congressional Democrats became concerned that the movement against Obama’s agenda would not abate, they continued to engage in actions that only stoked the protesters’ passion.

Throughout this period, thousand-page legislative desires were repeatedly introduced in Congress by Democratic legislators without input from the public or from Republican officeholders. This only fueled the feeling in the country that the party in control of the White House and both houses of Congress held little but contempt for the Constitution and taxpayers.

As examples, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused protesters of being anti-American swastika carriers and/or racists. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued directives to watch Tea Party participants, returning war veterans, lawful gun owners and even citizens with unflattering bumper stickers about the administration, as potential threats to the country’s security.

When Missouri’s U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill asked attendees at her town hall meeting, “You don’t trust me?” she was surprised with the shouts of “no” in response.

September’s march on Washington, where untold thousands came to voice support for limited government, was expectedly ignored by the press, but not by Tea Party organizers and sympathizers.

And if there was ever a time where the word “non-partisan” could be used appropriately, it was in the revolt against the hand-picked Dede Scozzafava, Republican standard bearer in NY’s 23^rd Congressional District. Many of Scozzafava’s issue positions, as evidenced from her voting record while serving in New York’s legislature, led to her being labeled a RINO (Republican in name only).

A conservative businessman, Doug Hoffman, chose to challenge Scozzafava and her Democratic opponent as the Conservative Party candidate. His challenge became a rallying cry around the country for conservatives. As his endorsements from the likes of Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, George Pataki and others began adding up, it became apparent he had a chance of winning the seat.

Scozzafava soon fell to a distant third place in the polls, and on Saturday she announced she would suspend her candidacy. On Sunday, Scozzafava officially endorsed the Democratic candidate in the race.

The rapidity and intensity of support for Hoffman’s candidacy could not have taken place without the burning Tea Party embers initiated with Santelli’s February cry.

As for the other three races to be decided on Tuesday, larger-than-usual voter turnout in all of them will give the spin masters more to talk about.

Perhaps a sleeping giant has not been awakened in this country, but a whole lot of Lilliputians are scurrying around with their ropes to tie one down.

7 Responses to “The Rick Santelli Effect on Tuesday’s elections”