Whom Are You Voting Against?

Nate Silver recently reported that, despite the tightness of the polls in the gubernatorial campaigns in Wisconsin and Michigan, he gives a better-than even chance - a much-better-than-even chance - for Republican incumbent governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Snyder of Michigan to defeat their respective Democratic challengers, Mary Burke and Mark Schauer.  Which leads me to ask two questions:

1) Have people in the Great Lakes region lost their f*#!!in' minds?  

2) Are these Democratic election campaigns really about the Democratic candidates, or are they just about defeating the Republican incumbents?

Think about it.  In 2004, John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee, and despite his impressive credentials, I never heard much said about what a Kerry administration could do for America.  I only heard Democrats say, "We gotta beat Bush!" Well, it soon became obvious that no one was voting for Kerry because he was going to get bin Laden, establish public medical insurance, or stop outsourcing jobs to China.  No one voted for Kerry at all - those who voted Democratic in 2004 were really voting against Bush.  When Kerry lost, and it turned out that Kerry hadn't spent all the money his campaign had raised, he expressed great regret and said that he had let down people who believed in him.  One liberal pundit  - I can't remember whom - was livid.  "It was never about you!"  the pundit exclaimed in an open letter to Kerry.  "It was about beating Bush!"           

Oh yeah, not only did Bush get elected with 51 percent of the vote - the only Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote and the only Republican presidential candidate to win more than half of it since his father in 1988 - seven new Republican senators, all decidedly to the right, rode in on his coattails.      

What I'm afraid is happening in Wisconsin, Michigan, and possibly other states where a polarizing Republican governor or senator is up for re-election this year, is this:  Democrats are so fired up to vote against someone that they either have forgotten or don't care whom they're voting for.  If it's not about Mary Burke in Wisconsin or about Mark Schauer in Michigan, then whom or what are Democrats there voting for?  Whom or what are they supporting, rather than opposing?  If Democrats in either of those states are not voting for a positive agenda, and if they're only voting to get rid of someone, well, that's not going to attract many people to their efforts to elect Democrats.  I get the impression that the Democratic Party would be content to get Republicans voted out of office without actually electing their own candidates.  If you've seen Alison Lundergan Grimes run against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky for the U.S. Senate, you know what I mean.  So don't be surprised on Tuesday if Burke is bumped off and Schauer hits the showers.  (If they and Grimes lose, of course, they, being Democrats, won't be back to run in future elections.)         

There may be some silver linings (no pun intended, Nate) for Democrats among the governor's races to be decided on Election Day, especially when, despite Democratic Party propaganda, the Senate is as good as lost.  Democrat Paul Davis may take the governor's office in Kansas, amazingly, though Wendy Davis won't win the governorship of Texas.  Democrat Tom Wolf will almost certainly be the next governor of Pennsylvania, ousting the much despised Tom Corbett.  Maine is too close to call; while Democratic challenger Mike Michaud has the edge over his fellow French-Canadian, the horrible Republican governor Paul LePage (the Chris Christie of New England), the role of liberal independent candidate Eliot Cutler and a freak snowstorm over the weekend that caused massive power outages may tip the balance one way or another.  I don't even want to guess what's going to happen in the governor's race in Florida, but Democrat Charlie Crist is running the race against Rick Scott that Alex Sink should have run back in 2010.  These are clearly races where Democrats stood for, not against, something.  Once more Democrats realize that you have to give people something to vote for, then maybe they'll get somewhere.  But don't bet on it.

Oh yeah, Martha Coakley (the Alex Sink of New England) is toast in her bid for governor of Massachusetts.  Good riddance.  I'll be appalled if Scott Brown - whose political career couldn't have happened without Coakley's incompetence - wins the Senate race in New Hampshire on Election Day.  But I'll be just as pleased to see Coakley, a major embarrassment to the Democratic party and the typical arctic Irishwoman (I've seen freezers project more warmth), lose.  Now there's someone to eagerly vote against.