Season greets GOP with hint of hope, cheer

November’s elections proved a second-straight disaster for Republicans, but December has given them some room for optimism regarding 2010.

In the aftermath of a week in which the GOP went 3-for-3 in contested races and inexplicably stole a seat from the majority party, Republicans are wrestling with the larger significance of the three wins, though some are hesitant to overemphasize.

{mosads}Democrats, meanwhile, are seeking to distance their fortunes from President-elect Obama and reinforce that they won in November thanks to the strength of their candidates and machinery and not simply the Obama effect.

In Georgia, a three-point Election Day edge for Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) grew to 15 points in the runoff last Tuesday. Republicans then pulled a sweep in Louisiana’s delayed congressional races on Saturday, including a shocker over indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D) in one of the most Democratic districts in the country. (Sunday’s win for Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy in Ohio’s 15th district was due to the completed count of provisional ballots from Election Day.)

Republican House Leader John Boehner was quick to call Jefferson’s vanquisher, attorney and activist Anh “Joseph” Cao, the “future” of the Republican Party.

“As House Republicans look ahead to the next two years, the Cao victory is a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive alternative and work aggressively to earn the trust of the American people,” Boehner (Ohio) said in a statement.

Jefferson appeared to be joined in defeat by a top Democratic recruit, Caddo Parish District Attorney Paul Carmouche, who trailed Republican physician John Fleming by 356 votes with all precincts reporting in the northwestern, Shreveport-based district. Neither candidate has conceded in that race.

Democrats had eyed the seat immediately upon Rep. Jim McCrery’s (R) retirement announcement one year ago and spent $1.2 million on the race.

After a net gain of 24 seats in 2008 with Obama as their standard-bearer, Democrats have already begun the process of claiming their independence from him in an election where he is, historically, likely to be a burden.

In 2010, they will try to avoid becoming the latest example of a nearly flawless historical pattern in which the party of a new president loses seats in a midterm election.

Within hours of the Louisiana races concluding, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)touted a study from the Democratic-leaning National Committee for an Effective Congress that showed most Democrats in top congressional races outperforming Obama on Election Day.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the incoming chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), said on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” over the weekend that Obama’s fortunes would indeed affect the 2010 landscape, but he also pointed to individual candidates’ strengths and said Obama would mean something, but not everything.

And it’s worth noting the December races took place in two states where Republicans have actually been on the rise in recent years, while Jefferson’s loss will likely be attributed to his personal troubles — he is awaiting trial in a 16-count corruption case — more than any GOP momentum.

DCCC spokesman Doug Thornell emphasized Kilroy’s win and the historically GOP nature of McCrery’s district: “Clearly, the GOP is gassing up their spin and propaganda machine if this constitutes progress for them.”

Boehner’s optimism is not a unanimous feeling among Republican strategists, as many in the GOP are torn as to how much to celebrate such victories.

Several Republicans noted Jefferson’s indictment and the red nature of the terrain in the two GOP defenses. The party also won a seat in Louisiana’s 6th district on Election Day — one of just four takeovers nationally.

“[Fleming and Chambliss] were more wins we were supposed to have, rather than a comeback,” said a Republican leadership aide who asked not to be named.

Still, the aide said, they were important in giving the GOP a lift: “These were confidence-boosters, and that is what the party needed.”

Republicans also point to the lack of Democratic enthusiasm and the apparent drop-off in African-American turnout without Obama at the top of the ticket.

{mospagebreak}The results could be construed as proof that Republicans remain a strong Southern party — especially when African-Americans aren’t motivated to vote, as they were in November.

There was a precipitous decline in early voting among blacks in Georgia, and Carmouche appeared to suffer from a lack of minority turnout in a district that, similar to the Peach State, is around 30 percent black.

In Louisiana, both sides held primary runoffs on Election Day. With Obama on the ballot, Carmouche actually outpolled the combined total of both GOP contenders that day — much different from the December results.

{mosads}And Jefferson’s district is mostly black voters, at nearly two-thirds, who may not have been as motivated to go to the polls without the first African-American candidate for president on the ballot.

The latest GOP victories show Democratic wins in key Southern districts are “totally dependent upon [Obama’s] presence on the ticket,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres.

The president-elect didn’t expend much political capital in the three races, cutting radio ads for Carmouche and Georgia Senate candidate Jim Martin but otherwise staying out of all three races.

“We’re on the comeback trail,” Ayres said, sounding what he called notes of “cautious optimism.”

Others agreed.

“We’re learning that many of the people who voted for Obama are not willing to turn out for other candidates,” said GOP consultant Dick Leggitt. “I think that should give Republicans some real optimism for 2009,” when New Jersey and Virginia will hold gubernatorial elections.

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the Louisiana results show the GOP “remains a viable alternative in the wake of the 2008 election.”

John Maginnis, a Louisiana political analyst, said nothing should be read nationally into Jefferson’s win, but that Carmouche “probably should have won the race.”

He noted that it wasn’t just that Obama wasn’t on the ballot, but that Democrats antagonized black voters in both Carmouche’s and outgoing Rep. Don Cazayoux’s (D-La.) districts. Cazayoux took the seat from the GOP in a special election earlier this year, but Republicans took it back on Election Day.

Carmouche faced a black candidate in the primary runoff and drew public opposition from influential black state Sen. Lydia Jackson (D), and Cazayoux suffered mightily from a black former primary opponent running as an Independent.

Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said the Democratic losses point to localized problems between white and black within the Democratic Party.

“There’s one take-home lesson, and that’s that Democrats in the South can’t win without black voters,” Cross said.