Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Saturday opinionizing.

Charles Blow:

This is now Obama’s crisis, and it carries political consequences. During Tuesday’s gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, nearly 9 in 10 voters said that they were worried about the direction of the nation’s economy in the next year. And the majority of those who held that view [VA/NJ exit poll] voted for the Republican candidates. This could portend a flashback to 1994.

In NJ, those who picked economy/jobs as most important issue voted for Corzine 58-36. In VA it was 57-42 McDonnell.

Terence Samuel on Tuesday's election portents:

Here is what they do reveal: The GOP won in Virginia because it had a better candidate and ran a better campaign. In New Jersey, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine was so damaged that all Republican candidate Chris Christie had to do was avoid Corzine's self-implosion. Not even $23 million of his own money combined with a deep reservoir of Democratic goodwill in the Garden State could save Corzine. The circumstances of the Democratic win in the New York House race were so bizarre that they would be impossible to re-create next year -- or maybe ever.

Tobin Harshaw tries to pour oil on some smoldering coals at the Opinionator (multiple links, many worth reading) to make the case for a Democratic civil war that's somehow parallel to NY-23, or going after Charlie Crist. Nice try. We're Democrats (not ever to be confused with disciplined - see Will Rogers.) The main counterweights to NY-23 are gay marriage campaigns and Byron York's agitprop. And while there are legitimate beefs and hurt feelings (always exacerbated with losses), there's no equivalence to the conservative v centrist battle within the GOP except in the minds of "he said-she said" pundits who must create equivalence if there is none, because "everyone knows" it must be there.

Gail Collins:  

Anyhow, we concerned citizens need to decide exactly what we’re rooting for. Public option? Which one? How much would you care if there were none at all? For some people, a health care bill without a public option is like a car without an engine. For others — including some members of the Obama administration — it’s more like a car without a hood ornament.

Lee Hockstader:

Bob McDonnell's lopsided win in Virginia's gubernatorial election was the victory of an agile, disciplined, focused and attractive Republican against an unpolished Democrat who ran a lackluster campaign. It also rewarded a shrewd judgment by McDonnell, who drew the right conclusion from the Republican defeat in the 2005 race for governor, and from a string of other GOP failures in the state -- even as party leaders drew the exact opposite lesson...

The GOP's right-wing stalwarts rejected the advice of moderates that the party connect with suburban voters by focusing on education, transportation and health care. Ideologues to the last, they figured a smaller party grounded in "principle" would be a stronger party.

McDonnell's insight was to disregard that advice and adopt the language, priorities and style of the center-right moderates -- even though his ideological roots were farther to the right.

National Journal blogger poll on cap-and-trade: Left-Leaners Cautiously Optimistic; Right-Leaners Have Their Doubts

LA Times:

A new poll confirms that the Obama administration and federal health officials have failed to convince Americans -- at least those in the most populous state of California -- of the seriousness of a H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

A majority of those registered voters polled by a new survey team involving The Times and the University of Southern California said they believed the new, delayed vaccine was safe.

But a majority also said they had no intention of getting it.

Well, that should ease those long lines. But shortages seem to be spurring interest in the rest of the country. And you need to know the baseline for comparison - 20-30% of the country gets the seasonal flu vax. The numbers:

Only 5% of those polled said they already had been inoculated. Of the rest, 52% said they did not plan to get vaccinated. Of the 40% who said they wanted the vaccine, 12% said they already had attempted to find it but failed.

Of those polled, 70% said they think the H1N1 vaccine is safe for most people, while only 17% said there was a strong chance the vaccine is unsafe.

"Win" on the safety message, "incomplete" on the need, though more people are asking for the vax than usual. The losers are the anti-vax people.