The Dennis Moore lesson

A successful Kansas Democrat has decided not to seek re-election, opening a seat in a "purple" District that is attracting several Republican hopefuls:

All [of the potential GOP candidates] told The Kansas City Star that they believed Moore . . . was in trouble because of his support for many of President Barack Obama’s initiatives, including the stimulus package and health care reform.
"He's very vulnerable," O'Hara said. "He's become a voting machine for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

What is happening to Moore in KS3 now is part of a nationwide phenomenon that will become more apparent going into the 2010 mid-terms.

Middle-class voters perceive that the ascent of Obama to the White House has resulted in a political imbalance that in turn produced bad economic policies. Even many of those who voted for "Hope and Change" now want to elect Republicans to Congress to restore balance in Washington. In suburban and rural districts where Bush won in 2004 but Democrats currently hold congressional seats, the anti-Bush backlash that dominated in 2006 and 2008 has ended.

The combination of unprecedented deficit spending and high unemployment constitutes a toxic burden to Democrats going into 2010. The stimulus-and-bailout agenda was never popular among middle-class voters. It is not merely the economic failure of that agenda, but the way it contradicts basic bourgeois beliefs about financial prudence, which make it such a political liability. Any Democrat in a middle-class district who voted for that agenda can expect to be pounded relentlessly by attack ads.

And expect to see a lot of Not-A-Politician candidates emerge as the GOP challengers in these districts. This isn't just about "populism," it's about Republicans understanding the current political terrain.

Endangered Democratic incumbents would like nothing better than to face a Republican opponent who is already a state senator or a long-serving county commissioner -- someone with a political record that can be used in opposition research. Therefore, GOP activists will be seeking out squeaky-clean Solid Citizen types, "outsiders" who bring no political baggage into the campaign -- school teachers, small business owners, housewives, etc.

The media will try to portray this as a "peasants with pitchforks" phenomenon, but it's really just smart politics.