Pelosi Condemns Death Threats Against Fellow Democrats

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Pelosi Condemns Threats Against Congress Members


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday condemned vandalism and threats against members of Congress who voted for sweeping health care changes, and House Republicans who fought the legislation joined in urging people to calm down.

"I don't want this to be a distraction" to the work of Congress, Pelosi said. But she also asserted that such violence and threats of reprisal have "no place in a civil debate in our country" and must be rejected.

At least four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas were struck and at least 10 members of Congress have reported some sort of threats, including obscenity-laced phone messages, congressional leaders have said. No arrests have been reported.

Ohio Rep. John Boccieri, one of eight Democrats who switched to "yes" on the most recent House vote, said he had received threats. "Having flown missions in and out of Afghanistan, I know what it's like to be in harm's way. But I never imagined serving in Congress could feel the same," said Boccieri, a major in the Air Force reserve. He did not elaborate on the threats.

Pelosi spoke to reporters at the Capitol shortly after GOP lawmakers took the House floor, pleading with those who vehemently oppose the Democratic health care move to refraim from acts of violence and threats.

Opposition to the health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday is "no excuse for bigotry, threats or acts of vandalism," said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the House's third-ranked Republican.

Said Republican Rep. Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania: "Some of our colleagues have received threatening phone calls. A brick has been thrown, a window has been smashed. This is not the right way to respond."

Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat and chairwoman of an influential House committee, said someone had left her a voice mail that used the word "snipers."

Some of the anger spilled over in a flood of threat-filled phone and fax messages to the office of Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. Stupak vowed to oppose the health care package unless given greater assurance that it would not allow federal funding of elective abortions. He voted in favor after the administration agreed.

Stupak's office released some of the messages, declining further comment.

"I hope you bleed ... (get) cancer and die," one male caller told the congressman between curses.

A fax with the title "Defecating on Stupak" carried a picture of a gallows with "Bart (SS) Stupak" on it and a noose attached. It was captioned, "All Baby Killers come to unseemly ends Either by the hand of man or by the hand of God."

And in Virginia, someone cut a propane line leading to a grill at the Charlottesville home of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother after the address was posted online by activists angry about the health care overhaul. Perriello also said a threatening letter was sent to his brother's house.

Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer told The Associated Press Thursday that there was "no evidence that annoying, harassing or threatening telephone calls or emails are coordinated. Regrettably though, bloggers and twitters seem to feed off each other, leaving little room for creativity."

At the news conference, Pelosi noted that "our country has had a lively debate." But she also said that it is "important for us to be able to express ourselves freely, not to diminish that in any way, but also to hit a standard that says some of the actions ... must be rejected."

The California Democrat said she didn't mean her criticism to "paint everyone with what has happened here with the same brush." And she said she did not "subscribe to the theory that these acts sprang from the comments of my colleagues."

"I think we have to manage this issue very carefully, recognizing we are a democracy," Pelosi said. "We do not want to stifle debate, or free expression of it."

The FBI is working with lawmakers subjected to menacing obscenity-laced phone messages. In some instances, bricks were hurled through congressional offices, including Rep. Louise Slaughter's district headquarters in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., called it "an effort to kind of hijack the debate by coercive elements. I'm glad the Republican leadership colleagues denounce it. But they were very late to do that."

"It is unacceptable in America," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who exhorted angry citizens to channel their rage into voter registration.

The vandalism and threats surprised a researcher at a think tank that monitors extremist groups.

"I think it is astounding that we are seeing this wave of vigilantism," said Mark Potok of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

Gun imagery was used in a posting on the Facebook page of Sarah Palin urging people to organize against 20 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill and whose districts went for the John McCain-Palin ticket two years ago. Palin's post featured a U.S. map with circles and cross hairs over the 20 districts.

McCain defended Palin, saying it was commonplace practice and "part of the lexicon" to refer to "targeted" congressional districts.


Sources: CBS News, Yahoo News, Politico, Youtube

GOP May Loose In 2010: Tea Party Extremism & Radical Wingnuts

Weak Tea? GOP Fears Party Fall Out


Ready and eager to transition from opposing health care reform to targeting the members of Congress who made it happen, tea party organizers find themselves grappling instead with reports of ugly behavior at this weekend’s protests in Washington that could stymie efforts to broaden the movement’s appeal.

While the thousands of tea partiers who thronged the Capitol grounds on short notice in advance of Sunday’s House health care vote were proof of the movement’s continuing energy, their impact was undercut by accounts of racist and homophobic epithets directed at Democratic lawmakers by a handful of individuals among this weekend’s crowd.

Tea party organizers have struggled in recent months to clamp down on fringe elements that have sprung up around — and sometimes within — the movement, including white supremacists and conspiracy theorists who believe that the government played a role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (“truthers”) or that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to be president (“birthers”).

Some tea party and GOP leaders quickly denounced the slurs shouted at House Democrats, pointed out they were not representative of most tea partiers and urged protestors to stay focused on the movement’s core issues of limited government and taxation. Others suggested either that reporters and lawmakers had fabricated the incidents, or said the epithets came from tea party opponents who had infiltrated the crowds. Some even demanded apologies from Democrats who they said falsely accused them.

Regardless of who yelled what, the reports themselves could be problematic for the tea party movement, said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the small government group that helped organize tea partiers’ congressional office visits last week.

“Tattoos last forever,” said Brandon, quoting his boss, FreedomWorks chairman and former House Republican Leader Dick Armey. “If the movement gets tattooed as at all sympathetic to those (racist and homophobic) views, I won’t want to be involved in it anymore. It’s very distracting not only to our side but also to the debate and the country.”

Jenny Beth Martin, an Atlanta-based leader of the influential national umbrella group Tea Party Patriots, has played something of a self-policing role at tea party events, including last weekend’s rallies, urging protesters not to engage with counter demonstrators who at times confronted tea partiers.

Of the reported epithets, she said, “we do not allow that kind of thing to happen within our events because it is wrong and we’re not going to put up with it. I don’t think it’s good for any movement to have reports of crazy people doing things like that. More than the movement, I don’t think it’s good for America for that kind of thing to happen.” Pointing to her group’s denunciation of a self-proclaimed tea party leader photographed with a racist sign, Martin said “if we saw that kind of thing happening, we would kick the people out. We have a history of doing that.”

House Democrats expressed outrage at the treatment some of them received over the weekend, and signaled they will make it an issue for the tea party movement’s Republican allies. Referring to “this crazy stuff the Republicans are doing here,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), said GOP leaders “ought to be ashamed of themselves for bringing these people here to Washington, D.C., and they're acting like this.”



And Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) took the house floor Saturday to blast “these teabagger protesters who have been out today” and to “call on the Republicans to say shame on the tea party for that type of behavior.”

The conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds responded that it was Clyburn who may “owe the tea party protesters an apology” for playing “the bogus racism card.” And Debbie Gunnoe, a tea party organizer from Navarre, Fla., who was in the House gallery for Ryan’s comments called on him to apologize for “making the generalization that a few rogue people are an example of the rest of the” tea party movement and “for calling all tea party people across the United States ‘tea baggers,’ which is a denigrating word with negative connotations. It’s as bad as calling a black person the N-word.”

Tea party leaders emphasized that racist and homophobic rhetoric is not welcome in their movement but asserted it’s difficult to police large crowds, with some pointing to the comparisons drawn by liberals at anti-Iraq war protests between former President George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler. Other tea partiers interviewed Sunday pointed to video making the rounds in the conservative blogosphere showing other black Democratic lawmakers including Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) — who said he was called the N-word as he walked by tea partiers into the Capitol Saturday — wading through a crowd of protesters outside the Capitol.

The 48-second video, which showed Lewis and others walking through one small stretch of tea partiers booing and chanting “Kill the Bill” — but not yelling epithets — was posted by Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism website as “VIDEO PROOF” that the “media (is) lying about racist attacks on black Reps by tea party protesters.”

“There has been a narrative of labeling the entire tea party movement as racist or homophobic that is an attempt to discredit the people who are a part of it,” said Mark Skoda, a Memphis, Tenn., tea party organizer who attended Saturday’s protests and is part of a group called the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition that helped organize a Capitol Hill war room of sorts for activists headed to the House office buildings to lobby publicly undecided lawmakers on the bill.

His team urged tea partiers to be respectful, Skoda said, pointing out that immigration reform advocates and anti-war demonstrators rallied near the tea partiers Saturday and suggesting it was “a possibility” that some may “have tried to infiltrate” the tea party crowd to “portray the movement in a negative light.”

The end of the debate over the health care overhaul — which has emerged as the defining issue of the year-old conservative populist tea party movement — marks an important moment for tea party activists as they hurtle toward the critical 2010 congressional midterm elections trying to maintain their energy, recruit new activists, manage their fringe and decide to what extent they can support Republican candidates and causes.

Tea party leaders and activists for weeks have been quietly planning contingencies if Democrats were able to pass a health care bill. Many believe that despite not being able to defeat the bill, final passage could actually help the movement enter a new phase by re-energizing activists, mobilizing new ones and helping shift the focus to the coming congressional midterm elections.

“This thing is only getting stated,” said Gary Armstrong, a tea party organizer in East Tennessee, who helped organize a 50-activist rally Saturday outside the local offices of Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who was considered one of the last nine Democratic holdout votes.

Armstrong asserted that final passage would be an effective mobilizing tool for tea party activists. “It’s all good publicity for the tea party. The sleeping giant is starting to wake up. Make no bones about it, he ain't awake yet.”

If Obama signs the overhaul bill, “there will be a nuclear explosion” of tea party activism, predicted Tom Whitmore, a Northern Virginia tea party activist who on Saturday was running the tea party war room. “Over the last year, people have developed this interest in their sovereignty, and they’re not ready to go back or to throw away all their hard work.”

To be sure, many activists don’t appear ready to let go of the health care fight and have announced plans to back state-level efforts to challenge the constitutionality of health insurance mandates in the bill that passed by the House. Others are angling for fights over anticipated congressional proposals to reform the nation’s immigration laws or to limit carbon emissions.

But the overarching focus of tea party organizers is prodding activists to turn their attention to November, and what they hope will be, in effect, “a referendum on the health care vote,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks. The group’s political action committee has been providing online tools for activists to put together comparative analyses of candidates and precinct-walking strategies, with a heavy focus on targeting supporters of the health care overhaul.

“I would absolutely rather win the policy than the Congress,” said Kibbe. “But it could be a net plus” for the tea party movement if the health care overhaul passes.

FreedomWorks’s PAC and others that have sprung up around the tea party movement have to date mostly focused on supporting primary opponents to Republicans deemed insufficiently conservative.

But Michael Johns, a tea party activist from New Jersey who also is part of Skoda’s Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, said the movement would be wise to turn its attention to targeting Democrats who supported the overhaul and — though it seems a harder sell — praising those who opposed the measure.

“We are in fact a nonpartisan movement,” he said. “We’re not about getting Republicans elected. And one of the things we’ve communicated is that Democrats who held their ground can expect some tea party support.”

Johns called the period after the health care debate “an important moment for the tea party movement.”

“We want to make sure that those who have been active in the movement over the last year — especially those that are new to political engagement — understand that there is no permanent victory, nor permanent defeat in politics or public policy.”


Sources Politico, Youtube

Recent Tea Party Movement Statistics - Quinnipiac Poll

Tea Party Statistics - Quinnipiac Polls


Only 13 percent of American voters say they are part of the Tea Party movement, a group that has more women than men; is mainly white and Republican and voted for John McCain, and strongly supports Sarah Palin, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

While voters say 44 - 39 percent that they will vote for a Republican over a Democratic candidate in this November's Congressional elections, if there is a Tea Party candidate on the ballot, the Democrat would get 36 percent to the Republican's 25 percent, with 15 percent for the Tea Party candidate, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

By a 28 - 23 percent margin, American voters have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party, with 49 percent who say they don't know enough about the group to form an opinion.

American voter opinion of the Democratic Party is 48 - 33 unfavorable, with opinion of the Republican Party 42 - 33 percent unfavorable.

While 70 percent of all voters are "somewhat dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with the way things are going in America today, 92 percent of Tea Party members are dissatisfied.

Government does too many things better left to businesses and individuals, 54 percent of all voters say, while 42 percent say government is not doing enough. Tea Party members say 83 - 15 percent that government is doing too much.

"The Tea Party movement is mostly made up of people who consider themselves Republicans," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "They are less educated but more interested in politics than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack and are not in a traditional sense swing voters."

"The Tea Party could be a Republican dream - or a GOP nightmare. Members could be a boon to the GOP if they are energized to support Republican candidates. But if the Tea Party were to run its own candidates for office, any votes its candidate received would to a very great extent be coming from the GOP column," Brown added.

Looking at voters who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement:

* 74 percent are Republicans or independent voters leaning Republican;
* 16 percent are Democrats or independent voters leaning Democratic;
* 5 percent are solidly independent;
* 45 percent are men;
* 55 percent are women;
* 88 percent are white;
* 77 percent voted for Sen. John McCain in 2008;
* 15 percent voted for President Barack Obama.

A total of 19 percent of American voters trust government to do the right thing "almost all of the time" or "most of the time," compared to only 4 percent of Tea Party members.

While only 33 percent of all voters have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, 72 percent of Tea Party members have a favorable opinion of her.

"Overall, this survey paints a picture of the Tea Party movement that encompasses a broad swath of the American middle class, but clearly at this stage one that is a minority group. In essence their numbers equate to about the size of the African-American electorate overall," said Brown.

Only 4 percent of voters making more than $250,000 per year consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, while percentages among all other age and income groups are close to the 13 percent overall Tea Party affiliation.

From March 16 - 21, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,907 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.2 percentage points. The survey includes 253 voters who say they are part of the Tea Party movement, with a margin of error of +/- 6.2 percentage points.

The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio and the nation as a public service and for research.


Sources: Quinnipiac University, Huffington Post

Democrats Under Attack From Right Wing Extremists! Backlash & Death Threats!

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The Backlash Begins: Reform Turns Personal


Louise Slaughter and Bart Stupak have received death threats.

A tea party participant published what he thought was Thomas Perriello’s home address and urged disgruntled voters to “drop by” for a “good face-to-face chat.”

Vandals broke windows at Slaughter’s office in New York and Gabrielle Giffords’s office in Arizona.

And angry voters are planning to protest this weekend at the home of Steve Driehaus — who’s already seen a photograph of his children used in a newspaper ad published by reform opponents.

The vitriolic health care debate has become personal — too personal, say House Democrats who voted for the bill and now find not just themselves but their families in the cross hairs of opponents.

Slaughter, a Democrat who chairs the House Rules Committee, said a caller to her office last week vowed to send snipers to “kill the children of the members who voted yes.” Her office reported the call to police, who were dispatched to provide protection for Slaughter’s grandchildren. She has also been in touch with the FBI and U.S. Postal Service inspectors, who intercepted a letter en route to her home in upstate New York.

Stupak, the Michigan Democrat whose last-minute compromise on abortion guaranteed passage of the bill Sunday, said callers have left messages for him saying, “You’re dead; we know where you live; we’ll get you.”

“My wife still can’t answer the phone,” Stupak told POLITICO Tuesday. The messages are “full of obscenities if she leaves it plugged in. In my office, we can’t get a phone out. It’s just bombarded.”

Stupak, a former police officer, said he’s not fazed by the threats or by the prospect of protests at his district office this weekend. “I’ve looked down barrels of guns,” he said. “I’ve talked my way out of it.”



But Democrats said their political opponents go too far when they bring members’ families into the fray.

Driehaus, a Democrat from Ohio, was outraged last week when a group called the Committee to Rethink Reform used a photo of him and his two young daughters in a newspaper ad urging him to vote against any health care reform bill that included federal funding for abortion. Both the group and the newspaper — the Cincinnati Enquirer — apologized for including Driehaus’s daughters in the ad.

“I’m very protective of my family, like most of us,” Driehaus said Tuesday. “There is no reason for my wife and kids to be brought into any of this. If people want to talk to me, if people want to approach me about an issue, I’m more than happy to talk about the issue, regardless of what side they’re on. But I do believe when you bring in a member’s family, that you’ve gone way too far.”

Driehaus faults Republicans for providing encouragement to the most extreme opponents of reform. Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned that anti-abortion Democrats would suffer politically if they voted for the health care bill; he singled out Driehaus, saying he “may be a dead man” and “can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati” because “the Catholics will run him out of town.”

“Mr. Boehner made comments about me and my predicament when I go home which I felt were wildly out of bounds for his position and very irresponsible, quite frankly. He’s from next door. That’s not helpful. That’s irresponsible,” Driehaus said.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said, “The leader does not condone violence, and his remark was obviously not meant to be taken literally. He is urging Americans to take the anger they’re feeling and focus it on building a new majority that will listen to the people.”

No one condones death threats against members or their families, but not everyone is apologetic about taking complaints about health care reform straight to the homes of members.

Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, posted what he believed to be Perriello’s home address on his blog this week, sarcastically urging other tea partiers to stop by and “say hi and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care.”

The address turned out to be the home of Perriello’s brother — who has four children — but Troxel told POLITICO he didn’t intend to remove it from his blog. “If they would like to provide me with the address of Tom, then I’d be more than happy to take it down,” he said. “I have no reason to believe it’s not his house.”

A fellow tea party blogger said he thought it was fine for Troxel to post Perriello’s home address. “They have our home addresses,” said Kurt Feigel, who complained that protesters had little choice but to go to Perriello’s home because Perriello’s office doesn’t “respond to e-mail; they don’t respond to letters; they don’t respond to us showing up at his office. So what am I going to do?”

Perriello said his family doesn’t want him to be afraid. But when asked if he was scared anyway, the Virginia Democrat replied: “Whatever.”

“I’ve lived in Sierra Leone for two years, where the life expectancy is 34 years old. If the worst thing that happens is that special-interest groups spend millions of dollars against me and my most ardent opponents organize against me, it’s hardly a ‘cry me a river’ moment — as long as people act civil and within the law.”

Others are less sanguine.

C.J. Karamargin, a spokeswoman for Giffords, said staffers in the Democrat’s district office were “a little bit shaken” Monday when they arrived at work to find the glass front door shattered and covered in plywood.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) said he had to change his personal cell phone number after a Republican gave it out to health care opponents.

And Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Blue Dog Democrat from California, said he’s gotten physical threats over health care reform.

“There are some folks that identified themselves as being members of the tea party [who] called, [and] my staff has gotten to know their names over time, and they have been very loud and very ugly,” Cardoza said.

With the House vote behind them, Democrats hope to show voters that health care reform won’t wreak the devastation opponents predict — and that tempers will cool as a result.

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) said he’s already getting 95 percent fewer calls since Sunday’s vote.

“The real problem is the people who are calling and talking about a revolution and overthrowing government,” he said. “They can be angry. We’re all for that. But when they talk about taking over the government, the leadership has to do its part to stop that.”


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Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Huffington Post, Facebook, Youtube, Google Maps

G.O.P. Headed For A Comeback Or Just A Fantasy?

GOP comeback? David Gregory, moderator of "Meet the Press", breaks down the impact of the victories in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Dem triumph in upstate New York.

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Happy GOP boss. RNC chairman Michael Steele discusses the GOP's triumphs in Virginia and New Jersey, and responds to a grilling from Lawrence O'Donnell.

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What do the Voters want?

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U.S. House Republicans release their Health Care Plan.

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White House Steers Clear Of 2009 Super Tuesday's Dem Losses

What lessons can be learned from 2009 Super Tuesday's election Dem losses?

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Axelrod reacts to Tuesday’s elections. Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod discusses whether Tuesday’s election results are a reflection of the first year of the Obama administration.

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US Economy key voting issue in VA.

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White House distances itself from Dem losses

The White House distanced itself Wednesday from Democratic losses in two states, saying the races for governor hinged on local issues and were not a referendum on President Barack Obama.

The Republican victories Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey energized the opposition and are a setback for Obama as he struggles to overhaul the U.S. health care system, win passage of climate change legislation, and build political support for his handling of the war in Afghanistan.

They could also be ominous for Democrats ahead of next year's midterm elections, when a third of the Senate, all of the House of Representatives and most governorships are on the ballot.

But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that voters in both states went to the polls to work through "very local issues that didn't involve the president."

The presidential spokesman said that voters were concerned about the economy. He said "I don't think the president needed an election or an exit poll to come to that conclusion."

Tuesday's elections marked some good news for Republicans, who lost control of Congress in 2006 and lost the White House last year. It will help them raise money and recruit candidates to prepare for next year's election.

GOP finds its voice?

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said the victories demonstrated "a transcendent party" that was on the move again.

Steele told CBS's "The Early Show" that he believes the Republican Party has "really found its voice again" after sustaining damaging losses last year.

In Virginia, Bob McDonnell, a former conservative state attorney general, easily defeated R. Creigh Deeds to become the state's first Republican governor in eight years. The state, once a Republican stronghold, had elected Democratic senators in 2006 and 2008. Last year, Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1964. McDonnell won with nearly 59 percent of the vote.

McDonnell's Republican supporters were delirious. A victory party crowd screamed, waved signs and chanted "Go, Bob, go!" when he was declared the victor.

In a news conference on Wednesday, McDonnell announced his transition team, led by fellow Republican Bill Boling, who was re-elected lieutenant governor on Tuesday. McDonnell was also asked about the national implications of his victory.

“We made a decision early on after talking to people all around the state that what Virginians are interested in are jobs and the economy, kitchen table issues,” he said. “I can say that what we found is that people are less interested in partisanship than in results."

In the traditionally Democratic state of New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie, a former corruption-busting federal prosecutor, narrowly defeated Gov. Jon Corzine, a billionaire former Wall Street executive, by a margin of 49 percent to 45 percent. Independent candidate Chris Daggett had about 6 percent.

In both states, independent voters who had been crucial to Obama's victory last year voted overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate.

Democrats took some solace by winning the closely watched special election for a Republican-held vacant seat in the 23rd Congressional District in New York state that highlighted fissures between moderates and conservatives in Republican ranks.

Long before Tuesday's vote, the White House rejected suggestions that the gubernatorial elections would be tantamount to referendums on Obama. Indeed, the votes took place in just two of the 50 U.S. states. Local issues and personalities dominated campaigns.

Still, exit polls showed more than four in 10 voters in Virginia said their view of Obama factored into their choice. Those voters roughly split between expressing support and opposition for the president. The Obama factor was similar in New Jersey, though there were slightly more voters who said the president did not factor into their choice.

Obama had inserted himself into the races, campaigning for both Corzine and Deeds and appearing in their advertisements. But Obama's popularity has faded some since the early days of the presidency and clearly wasn't strong enough to make a difference in the campaigns.

That point will not be lost on moderate Democrats seeking re-election in conservative districts and states. They may be reluctant to back Obama on issues like climate change and health care if it means antagonizing local voters — especially if Obama lacks the political heft to carry them through the next election.

Interviews with voters leaving polling stations in both Virginia and New Jersey were filled with reasons for Democrats to be concerned and for Republicans to be optimistic, particularly about independents, who often determine the outcomes of U.S. elections.

Independents turn back on Dems

Independents played a critical role in Obama's victory last year. But after more than a year of recession, they fled from Democrats in the two states, where the economy trumped all other issues.

Associated Press exit polls showed that nearly a third of voters in Virginia described themselves as independents, and nearly as many in New Jersey did. They preferred McDonnell by almost a 2-1 margin over Deeds in Virginia, and Christie over Corzine by a similar margin.

Last year, independents split between Obama and Republican John McCain in both states.

Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine said the shift among independent voters was difficult to interpret.

"We're going to have to scratch our heads a little bit on that one," he told CNN. He added that Obama continues to enjoy even stronger support among independent voters than he has in the past.

In both states, the surveys also suggested the Democrats had difficulty turning out their base, including the large numbers of first-time minority and youth voters whom Obama attracted.

In other races Tuesday, voters in the northeastern state of Maine rejected a state law that would allow same-sex couples to wed. If supporters had prevailed, it would have marked the first time that the electorate in any state endorsed gay marriage.

With 87 percent of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the vote.

A number of cities selected mayors. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg won a third term as New York mayor in a closer-than-expected race against a Democratic challenger who stoked voter resentment over the way the incumbent changed the city's term-limits law so he could stay in office.

With all precincts reporting, Bloomberg defeated city comptroller William Thompson Jr. 51 percent to 46 percent.

Bloomberg called it a "hard-fought victory in a very difficult year" and promised that New Yorkers "ain't seen nothing yet" from him.

"I'm committed to working twice as hard in the next four years as I did in the past eight," Bloomberg said.



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