Opinion

Corzine the canary

NEW Jersey voters just might wind up being the ones who kill ObamaCare — by voting out Gov. Jon Corzine in favor of ex-US Attorney Chris Christie. Virginians would help by choosing Republican Bob McDonnell for governor over Democrat Creigh Deeds.

Welcome to the off-year elections — a scattering of races that can mark trends heading into next year’s voting for Congress. As the House and Senate debate health-care reform, Democrats already worried about their constituents’ views on ObamaCare could panic if they see Deeds and Corzine collapse like canaries in a coal mine.

And recent polls have Christie and McDonnell ahead.

Coming the first year after a presidential election, the Jersey and Virginia races can signal major shifts in the midterm congressional contests. In 2005, Democrats won both governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, while GOP California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saw his ballot initiatives go down to embarrassing defeat. The next year, Democrats regained control of Congress.

In 1993 — the last time Democrats eyed a government takeover of health care — Republicans Christie Todd Whitman and George Allen won the Jersey and Virginia statehouses. The push for ClintonCare died the next year, and the Republicans took Congress for the first time in half a century.

Huge Democratic majorities in Congress make a similar shift next year unlikely. But Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, notes that GOP victories this year would encourage strong Republican candidates — folks who might otherwise stay on the sidelines, unwilling to play sacrificial lamb — to enter contests they’d suddenly appear to have a chance of winning.

Even if Democrats keep their majority, no one wants to lose his job to a GOP insurgent.

If they face serious challenges, moderate “Blue Dog” House Democrats — many from conservative states who won their seats by narrow margins — would know that every vote they cast could come back to bite them in the form of a 2010 attack ad. The prospect of going out on a limb for Obama’s unpopular health-care plan would frighten even the most courageous — and we’re talking about politicians here.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to avoid resorting to the trick of passing reform as part of the budget — a stratagem that’s guaranteed to boost GOP chances in the midterm elections. But that means he needs all 60 Democrats (including ailing 91-year-old Robert Byrd, who now often misses votes).

Reid is also striving to somehow vote out a bill before Election Day — but that’s a tough feat in the famously sluggish Senate. If he fails to move it fast, and Jersey and Virginia provide omens of Republican gains, some of the most vulnerable senators will scatter from ObamaCare faster than cockroaches from the Orkin Man.

Take, for instance, Indiana’s Sen. Evan Bayh. He’s well-liked, but he’s also a Democrat in a conservative state — and one with a popular health-reform plan launched by GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels. Up for re-election next year, Bayh has been evasive about how he’ll vote on Obama’s plan, saying last week: “If . . . they try and use smoke and mirrors to delude us and in fact the deficit’s going up, we’re not going to control people’s costs, all those sorts of things, then it’s not worth doing.”

Or Byron Dorgan of North Dakota — which went 53 percent for John McCain last year. Dorgan holds a leadership position as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, so he’s already had to go on record in favor of health-care reform. But his recent fund-raising e-mails suggest Dorgan fears a challenge next year from popular Republican Gov. John Hoeven.

Should November’s races indicate favorable winds for the GOP, Hoeven is exactly the type of strong candidate who might opt to challenge an incumbent Dem. If he does, Dorgan can’t really backtrack on ObamaCare — but he might find reasons not to push it, or even quietly push to drop it.

Then there’s Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, where McCain beat Obama by 20 points. Election-watchers rate her as one of the weaker Democrats in 2010; on Tuesday, Rasmussen’s first poll in Arkansas found Lincoln trailing four possible Republican challengers, and drawing more “unfavorable” ratings than “favorable” ones.

That poll also found that only 30 percent of Arkansas voters support ObamaCare, with 67 percent against.

Lincoln has been quiet so far on health reform. But as a member of the Finance Committee — which just finished marking up Sen. Max Baucus’s bill — she’s increasingly unable to keep a low profile. This week she joined committee Republicans in saying “no” to the most liberal proposals.

And yesterday she was the sole Democrat voting for a “poison pill” GOP amendment that would’ve prevented the Baucus bill’s taxes from applying to the middle class.

If Christie and McDonnell pull out wins on Election Day — and especially if a big-name challenger like former Gov. Mike Huckabee even fakes a challenge — it would put the “blanch” in Blanche Lincoln. And possibly put the kibosh on ObamaCare.

The president has put his former colleagues in a tough spot. They’d hate to lose the health-care fight — but they’d hate to lose their jobs even more.

Depending on how things turn out in New Jersey and Virginia, Nov. 3 could be the first indicator of whether that’s an either-or choice.

clyne.meghan@gmail.com