Today, Democrats are Smiling

Isn’t it amazing how one race in upstate New York all of a sudden has Democrats talking about taking back the House and Republicans talking about the need to reassess their message? You can blame the Tea Party, Jack Davis, Medicare or the abysmal state of the New York Republican Party but the fact of the matter is that for the first time since getting pasted in November, Democrats are smiling.

And why not? The vast majority of pundits and pontificators still haven’t figured it out yet. Voters today are increasingly demanding quicker results and are no longer willing to wait while solutions wind their way through the process. That this is a surprise to anyone boggles my mind. Take a look at any group of teenagers, twenty somethings or lobbyists outside of a committee hearing and they’re all glued to their phones texting; desperate for instant information.

Remembering all the hoopla about Obamacare, wait a second; what happened to that outrage? Well, it’s yesterday’s news. The spring time in North Africa and the Middle East have been all but forgotten as though the death of Osama Bin Laden was the final chapter in the story.

The attention span of voters is about the same as a strobe light and today’s hot issue will be long gone 18 months from now by the time November 2012 rolls around. John Boehner didn’t end up with 87 new Republicans simply because of health care and he’s not going to spend the next year and a half playing defense on Medicare.

The win by Kathy Hochul is likely to be followed by a win by Janice Hahn in California, but the circumstances are vastly different. Still, as a Democratic consultant I’d much rather be winning these seats than losing them.