Terry McAullife's Virginia Victory leads to Democratic Angst and President Obama's Quasi-Apology

Terry McAuliffe was scheduled to win Virginia by 15-20 percent over a “hapless” Republican, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The government shutdown played poorly in Northern Virginia, where the voters are government employees. The AG was tarred with the Tea Party. Attorney General Cuccinelli’s earlier pro-life and anti-gay marriage remarks were broadcast against him. McAuliffe was leading by 30-40% among women. McAuliffe followed the Obama Playbook. He demonized Cuccinelli early and often without a response, sinking the AG’s reputation with Virginia voters. He outspent the AG by almost $15 million, and 10-1 in the last week of the campaign. Cuccinelli was toast. The media told us so. McAuliffe barely won, a margin of 55,000 votes out of over 2.2 million cast. Cuccinelli won Republicans and Independents in the election. Terry McAuliffe, the bagman for the Clintons, also pulled a page out of the Clinton playbook. Governor Clinton won in 1992 because H. Ross Perot, a third party candidate sucked votes away from President George H.W. Bush, throwing the election to Clinton. A Democrat funded the third party Libertarian candidacy of Robert Sarvis, who received 145,560 votes, splitting the anti-McAuliffe vote. A few more days or a few more dollars and McAuliffe would have lost. ObamaCare has become an albatross around the neck of Democrats. 15 Democratic Senators up for reelection next year met with the President yesterday. They remember the 2010 elections. The Tea Party is not dead, but ObamaCare is alive but not well. The Senators had followed the Pied Piper of ObamaCare down the line like lemmings. Vote after vote – no straying from the Obama path, but now self-preservation is setting in. “If you like your plan, you can keep it. Period.” “If you like your doctor, you can keep him. Period.” Yes you can. No you can’t. As of this morning 4.3 million Americans had their private health insurance plans cancelled. “Read my lips. No new taxes.” President Obama is following in the footsteps of President George H. W. Bush. When repeated often enough, a catchy political slogan can become a covenant with the American people. “Read my lips; you get to keep your insurer and doctors.” The President started down the road to apology today. He sounded like he was dragged in kicking and screaming. What he really said was “I guess they weren’t so grandfathered after all,” echoing his remark about the non-shovel ready jobs in the Stimulus Bill. His apology, that is half apology, quasi apology, faux apology, pseudo apology, was as follows: “I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.” He sounded like he was dragged kicking and screaming into the interview with a friendly Chuck Todd from NBC. He clinged, like he once said of rural Pennsylvanians bitterly clinging to their guns and religion, to his talking points. Only about 5% of Americans will lose their policies (that's 15 million working Americans), their sub-par polices, because he wants all Americans to have the policy he believes is best for them. He also said “We weren’t as clear as we needed to be.” He was as clear as he needed to be to get the bill enacted and his reelection assured. Why would anyone believe anything he says? The President said “His team” will see what we could do. That is decisive leadership? He has two simple ways to allow Americans to keep their policies. The first would be to have Secretary Sebelius rewrite the three year old regulations which render it impossible for Americans to keep their policies. HHS could actually grandfather the existing policies, but that was never the plan.. The second approach would be to let Congress vote on preserving the existing policies. He’s scared to let Congress, especially House Republicans, have a shot at ObamaCare. The bad news for Virginia is that Terry McAuliffe is similar to California’s recalled Gray Davis. His only political skill is raising money.