Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama has made the case that he more than his opponents is positioned to usher in a huge Democratic majority in Congress. Meanwhile, over the past several weeks his political opponents from across the ideological spectrum have tried to make the exact opposite argument.
Tonight, that anti-Obama argument faced a critical test -- and failed. This morning, the Washington Post framed the question:
In Special Elections, GOP Tests Anti-Obama Strategy
By Paul Kane - Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 3, 2008; Page A03BATON ROUGE -- Don Cazayoux insists he pays so little attention to the presidential campaign that, even on the verge of capturing a seat in the House of Representatives, he was unaware that if he wins Saturday he will become a superdelegate, tasked with helping to decide the Democratic presidential nominee.
Yet in the run-up to Saturday's special election, the state representative's image popped up time and again in local television ads, paired with that of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). One spot had side-by-side photos of Cazayoux and Obama with the words "big government scheme" describing the local candidate's stance on health care. Another showed Cazayoux with Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and charged that Cazayoux supports a "radical liberal agenda." Another spot mocked him as "Don Tax You."
Faced with the prospect of losing a seat that the GOP has held for the past 33 years and the further thinning of their ranks in Congress, Republican committees and their conservative allies have poured more than $1 million into an effort to turn the race for Louisiana's 6th Congressional District into a referendum on Obama, the Democratic front-runner for the White House.
Despite the GOP's apparent confidence in its strategy of tying Obama to Cazayouz, their gambit fell short -- Cazayouz won by about 3%. That's not bad for a district that's been in Republican hands for the past three decades, and it's pretty good evidence that Barack Obama isn't the drag on the ticket that his detractors have claimed.
In fact, quite the opposite is more likely to be the case. Earlier this year, in another seat lost by Republicans, Democrat Bill Foster won a special election to fill former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat. Foster's campaign ran advertising featuring an endorsement from none other than...Barack Obama.
So the Republican record in defending their own districts in special elections featuring Barack Obama is now 0-2.
There will be another test on May 13 in Mississippi, but I'd be very pleasantly suprised if the Democratic candidate Childers were to win there because the district is the most conservative of the three and because as we saw in the March 11 primary, Republicans in Mississippi really dislike Barack Obama.
Whatever happens in Mississippi though, you better believe that superdelegates will also remember what happened in the Foster and Cazayouz elections. In both cases, Barack Obama was the face of the Democratic Party. And it both contests, the Democratic Party won.
Update: A reader writes that Donna Edwards' victory over Al Wynn is another example of a Congressional race -- albeit a Democratic primary -- where Obama played a role. Although Obama did not endorse Edwards, she endorsed him. Update 2: Al Wynn also endorsed Obama (in fact, three weeks earlier than Edwards), so this wasn't a good example to have included.
© Jed Lewison