Political lessons from N.J., Virginia

A week from today, New Jersey and Virginia - two nearby states that have a lot in common with Maryland, notably well-educated and racially diverse Eastern Seaboard populations with high household incomes - conduct the only two governor's races in this odd, and odd-numbered, election year.

Will the results have any meaning for politics in the rest of the country? Maybe, but not likely.

Despite the temptation to view these elections as bellwethers for the 2010 congressional races or even the 2012 presidential contest, they will be anything but. In 2001, only two months after the Sept. 11 attacks that provided President George W. Bush and national Republicans a significant political tail wind, both contests were won by Democrats: Jim McGreevey in New Jersey and Mark Warner in Virginia. But a year later, the GOP had a very strong 2002 midterm election cycle.

So perhaps it's best to draw a few lessons from these races before we know the results. The first and most obvious one is that it's very difficult to represent the incumbent party during tough economic times.

Because Virginia imposes a one-term limit on its governors, current Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine cannot seek re-election. Democratic nominee R. Creigh Deeds is running to some degree as a Warner-Kaine legacy, the upside of which is that Messrs. Warner and Kaine won comfortably and are generally popular in the commonwealth. (Last year, Mr. Warner cruised to an easy victory over his gubernatorial predecessor, Republican Jim Gilmore, in the state's open-seat U.S. Senate race.)

The downside is that Democrats have held the Virginia statehouse for eight years and now control all branches of government in Washington. And thus, the disproportionate share of present voter angst must be directed at Democrats. It's hard to send a signal to either Richmond or Washington by voting for Mr. Deeds.

A similar effect is evident in New Jersey - but with a key twist.

In the Garden State, Jon Corzine is the Democratic incumbent seeking a second term, so he also bears directly the burden of voter dissatisfaction with Trenton and Washington. But Mr. Corzine's high disapproval numbers are also a function of his professional background.

Unlike Mr. Deeds - a state legislator with a regular-guy touch from a rural part of Virginia - Mr. Corzine made millions as an executive for Goldman Sachs. That bio isn't exactly an asset at a time when Americans who still have a job are dealing with stagnant wages and rising health care costs, and Wall Street executives at companies bailed out by taxpayer dollars are raking in six-figure bonuses.

Another unavoidable lesson of these races is hardly new: Negative politics work.

The two Republican nominees, New Jersey's Chris Christie and Virginia's Robert McDonnell, have at times enjoyed large leads in their respective races. But sharp attacks on each man has made both contests more competitive than they otherwise might be.

In one television ad, the Corzine campaign attacked Mr. Christie, a former U.S. attorney, for "throwing his weight around" to avoid the consequences of an accident he caused driving the wrong way down a one-way street. That metaphor would be meaningless if Mr. Christie was not physically quite large. Though the misuse of political power is fair game, the Corzine campaign could just have easily used a phrase like "exploited his connections" to make the point that Mr. Christie benefited from a double standard.

In Virginia, the Deeds campaign combed through Mr. McDonnell's master's thesis, written at the height of the Murphy Brown gender-war era, and found some rather sexist views expressed about the role of women in modern society. Although the Republican's words are fair game, the Deeds team has used the statements to repeatedly cudgel Mr. McDonnell in an effort to dissuade women from voting for him for reasons other than, say, how the two candidates' transportation plans differ.

What's clear from these two contests is that, in one solidly blue and one blue-trending state, party labels matter - but so do personalities and raw politics. If the parties split the two contests, with Democrats holding New Jersey and Republicans picking up Virginia, we may learn little about the national mood while instead relearning old lessons about the power of demographic voting and hardball politics.

Thomas F. Schaller teaches political science at UMBC. His column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. His e-mail is schaller67@gmail.com.