Fitzsimon File

Contrary to what you may have heard from most of the punditry and television's talking heads, Tuesdays' election results in North Carolina and across the nation did not provide compelling evidence that voters have rejected President Obama and thrown in their lot with Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Even the two highest profile races that Republicans won, gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, don't indicate that.

While Republican Chris Christie defeated incumbent New Jersey Governor John Corzine, the race was as much about Corzine's personal unpopularity as any Republican wave. The fact that Democrats lost few seats while maintaining control of the New Jersey legislature makes that clear and recent polls in the state show Obama with an approval rating close to 60 percent.

Republican Bob McDonnell handily defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds to take the governorship of Virginia. McDonnell, a social and fiscal conservative, ran as a more moderate Republican and intentionally didn't run against Obama.

The one place that the Republicans tried to make Obama the issue was in a special congressional election in upstate New York for an open seat that has been held by Republicans for 150 years.

The race was initially between Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava, a pro-choice moderate. That infuriated the tea-party crowd, who recruited hard-right conservative Doug Hoffman to enter the race.

Hoffman became the national right-wing talk show darling, praised by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh. Sara Palin and other national conservatives came to the district to campaign for Hoffman.

Scozzafava eventually withdrew from the race, prompting many political observers to declare victory for the right and presume that Hoffman had the race sewn up. But the Republican district elected Owens, a clear repudiation of the tea-party conservatives.

Closer to home, the voters in Charlotte elected Anthony Foxx as the first Democratic mayor in 22 years. Foxx defeated Republican John Lassiter, a protégé of current Mayor Pat McCrory and statewide Republican standard bearer Pat McCrory.

McCrory spent much of the summer appearing at tea parties opposing Obama's health care proposals.

Republicans did win the mayor's office and a majority of the city council seats in Greensboro, but Chapel Hill elected progressive Democrat Mark Kleinschmidt mayor despite a well-coordinated effort from business conservatives to defeat him.

Asheville voters rejected Republican Carl Mumpower's try for a third term on the city council. Mumpower is a board member of the John Locke Foundation and ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, losing to Heath Shuler.

It must be just as disappointing to the Lockers and the anti-everything crowd that voters across the country now understand the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and are rejecting it.

The proposal puts arbitrary limits on state spending, crippling the chance of state lawmakers to adequately fund education and human services. It is a key component of the Right's plan to dismantle government. And the plan is failing.

Voters in Maine and Washington rejected TABOR initiatives Tuesday, taking more steam out of the movement to enact them nationwide and in North Carolina.

Maine voters overturned the state's law legalizing gay marriage, but voters in Washington passed an initiative over the loud protests of the religious right to give more rights to same-sex couples.

That was the way it went Tuesday, mixed results that say far less about the public's attitude about Obama and the direction of the country than the talk show hosts want you to believe.

Voters may be confused or anxious or even mad about the economy and health care and their retirement, but they are not crazy.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.