An ebullient Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele asserted Wednesday that GOP victories in governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia demonstrate “a transcendent party” on the move again. Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine said that nothing about the election returns amounted to a repudiation of President Barack Obama.
“We’re not crowing, we’re just smiling,” Steele said in a nationally broadcast interview. “I think it’s a bellwether for the party … You look at where we were nine months ago.”
Steele said he believes Chris Christie’s victory in New Jersey and Robert McDonnell’s win in Virginia show that the GOP has “really found its voice again” after sustaining damaging losses last year.
Kaine, who will be succeeded at the Virginia statehouse by McDonnell, said he thought voter anxiety about jobs and the economy played heavily in the balloting and said the defeat of incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey and candidate Creigh Deeds in Virginia shouldn’t be seen as a referendum on Obama. He said Obama “really retains a strong popularity among the voters.”
Obama’s campaign chairman, David Plouffe, made the same argument, saying “his approval rating is at or above his vote totals.”
Plouffe called politics “a comparative enterprise” and said “the Republican brand right now, with independents all across the nation, is really hurting.”
“I think, generally, these elections tend to be overrated as to what they’ll mean later. These are local races,” Plouffe said. He also said he believes the GOP has a problem because conservatives “(Sarah) Palin and (Rush) Limbaugh and (Glenn) Beck are out there purging moderates from the party.”
Steele and Plouffe appeared on CBS’s “The Early Show” and Kaine was interviewed on NBC’s “Today” show.
AP
