The Start of the Election Season

I'll bet you thought the election in Massachusetts was the first election of the 2010 election cycle.

Well, it was — and it wasn't.

Clearly, it is beyond dispute that the election in Massachusetts was the first time voters went to the polls in this calendar year.

But that was a special election. It wouldn't have been held if Edward Kennedy had not died. He was re–elected to a six–year term in 2006. Scott Brown was only elected to serve the final three years of the term.

Brown's victory was — arguably — a considerable setback for the Democrats, considering that Republicans won a Senate seat from Massachusetts for the first time in nearly 40 years. Barack Obama and the Democrats were justified in looking for lessons in the results.

Voters in Massachusetts will return to the polls later this year. At the scheduled time, Democrats and Republicans will choose their nominees for governor and other statewide offices, and party primaries will resolve any contested races for the nominations in the congressional districts as well.

But that isn't where the 2010 election cycle begins.

Halfway across the North American continent today, the state of Illinois is holding the first regularly scheduled primaries of 2010.

The voters in the Land of Lincoln will be choosing the nominees for governor and for Obama's former U.S. Senate seat. Gov. Pat Quinn, the former lieutenant governor who succeeded Gov. Rod Blagojevich when he was removed from office, apparently faces a tough challenge in his quest for a full term. Obama's old seat is open since the man who was appointed to replace him, Roland Burris, is not seeking a full term.

Unless Quinn loses, I doubt that much will be determined in today's primaries. Turnout figures may tell us a few things about the state of the political mind in Illinois, about the relative enthusiasm each party's base has or doesn't have, but unless there is a clear indication of an anti–incumbent movement within either party that is sufficient to deny an incumbent his/her party's nomination, Illinois will be of more interest in the general election.

The same could be said, really, of the other states, but Illinois holds a special distinction because it is the adult home of the president, the place where he launched his political career.

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun–Times observes that the general election campaign "will be played out on a national stage," and so it shall. But today's races do not match party against party.

Massachusetts gave both Democrats and Republicans an early, regionalized taste of the national mood. From now until November, they will have to gather whatever information they can from primary turnout and exit polls.

Other clues can be found in public opinion polls, although some have proven more reliable than others over the years. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic Party–leaning group whose neutrality has been under fire in recent years, reports that Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., trails Republican Rep. John Boozman by 22 points.

PPP declared Boozman the front runner, even though he hasn't won his party's nomination yet, and, after polling several hypothetical matchups, PPP concluded, "It's going to be a tough year for Democrats in Arkansas. ... Lincoln or no Lincoln this is going to be a very tough hold for Democrats."

Other polls are reporting similar findings in other states. So Obama and the Democrats are right to be worried in the aftermath of Massachusetts.

My advice would be to pay particular attention to the demographic groups that are considered likely voters. Many of the demographic groups that lifted Obama to the Oval Office in 2008 — i.e., the young and the minorities — can't be counted upon because they have reputations for not participating.

And one of the lessons in Massachusetts clearly was that, without Obama at the top of the ballot, those groups are not motivated to participate in large numbers.

Even when Obama himself comes to the state to make a personal appeal for votes.

Public opinion polls clearly indicate that Obama remains personally popular, in Massachusetts and elsewhere. But personal popularity is not the same thing as job approval. Nor, apparently, is it easily transferable — at least not to an extent that could have drawn more young voters, more minority voters, more liberal voters to the polls and, in the process, rescued Martha Coakley's campaign. Those voters did not show up.

And decisions — as they liked to say on The West Wing — are made by those who show up.