Yet a previously unknown state senator named Scott Brown pulled it off, and that is bound to invigorate Republicans everywhere, especially perhaps in Michigan. In Oakland County, for example, Paul Welday has been running a mostly unnoticed campaign for Congress against freshman Democrat Gary Peters.
Peters defeated longtime incumbent Joe Knollenberg two years ago, and Mr. Welday hasn’t been seen as a heavyweight contender. In fact, the night Peters was elected to Congress, Welday lost badly in a race for the state legislature. My guess was that the GOP was content to run Mr. Welday this time as a more or less sacrificial lamb, and make a more serious effort after redistricting changes all the political boundaries in the state for 2012.
But the Massachusetts miracle may have changed that. Hours after the result was known, Welday was telling supporters that he was now “convinced that we will have our Massachusetts moment right here in Michigan,” in November.
Well, he may be right, though he is still an underdog. And I would guess that he and other Republican contenders may now find it easier to raise money for this fall’s elections.
However - it is dangerous to assume that any political trend is going to continue, or that what happened in one election in one state is going to happen everywhere.
Let me give you a couple examples. Two years after Ronald Reagan was elected, his Republicans took a drubbing in the 1982 midterm elections, especially in Michigan and Ohio. Democrats won the governor’s race in both states for the first time in twenty years. U.S. Senator Donald Riegle won re-election by crushing a well-funded Republican Congressman. “Say good-bye to Reaganomics,” a top Democrat told me. Two years later, President Reagan was reelected by a landslide.
Fast forward to twelve years, to the mother of all stunning GOP election victories: Bill Clinton’s first midterm elections. Outraged over another failed health care plan, voters handed both houses of Congress to the GOP for the first time in forty years.
The next time he held a press conference, President Clinton was actually asked if he was “still relevant.” He was seen a one-term president. Three months later, I interviewed former President Gerald Ford. He had spent most of his career in Congress, working up to Minority Leader and dreaming of becoming Speaker of the House.
But his Republicans never came close to taking back control. Now, Newt Gingrich was in the job he wanted. What did Gerry Ford think? “Well, it remains to be seen,” he told me.
If he did a good job, Republicans might build a permanent majority, he said. If not “we could blow it and be right back where we were.” President Ford was no fool. Soon, Gingrich was being perceived as arrogant. A year later, President Clinton was reelected easily. In politics, there are no final victories and no final defeats.
There are only people who learn from their mistakes, and those who don’t. Over the next few months, we’ll get a better idea of which Michigan politicians fit into each category.
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