A Glimmer Does Not a Beacon Make

(Forgive the florid headline--it's getting late in the day here.)

Yesterday's elections across America (no federal offices at stake--just a few gubernatorial and many local races) produced what the press considers "trouble" for Bush and the Republican party:

Democrats on Wednesday celebrated hard-fought wins in governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey that underlined the political troubles of President George W. Bush and Republicans heading into next year's congressional elections.

Democrats retained governor's offices in conservative Virginia and Democratic-leaning New Jersey on Tuesday after sometimes nasty campaigns...The loss in Virginia was a personal setback for Bush, who put his declining political capital on the line with an election-eve visit on behalf of Republican former attorney general Jerry Kilgore -- only to see him soundly defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine.

With Bush's popularity at the lowest level of his presidency, the results helped giddy Democrats claim momentum one year before elections to decide control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and 36 governorships.

The interesting thing here is how little news there is in these results, and the degree to which they're being blown out of proportion. The victory of Michael Bloomberg in the NYC mayoral race was a foregone conclusion, Corzine defeated the same guy he defeated when he won his Senate seat (raising Forrester to the level of "proven loser"), and it seems that Schwarzenegger has been losing popularity without any help at all from the national party.

I understand the need to take hope wherever you can find it--heck, as a New York Jets fan, I find myself saying "Sure they're losing, but isn't it fun to see Vinny again?"--but I think it's obnoxious of the mainstream media to parrot this. Indeed, there are many stories out there about whether this is a "signal" (despite the fact that, for instance, neither the NJ or VA governorships switched parties).

A piece today by the right-wing Media Research Center has an interesting take:

Eight years ago, at the same point in Bill Clinton’s second term, Republicans maintained their control of the same governorships that were up for grabs yesterday. But the media refused to make those Democratic defeats a referendum on the Democratic President. Rather than branding them as “stinging defeats,” New York Times reporter Richard Berke determined the GOP victories were really a triumph for Clinton’s post-ideological approach.

Sure, the media needs to make news out of whatever it's handed, but does it always need to adopt the left's perspective?

Tags: Elections Corzine Forrester Schwarzenegger