2012 contest?By Arturo Mora, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist 2009
Any judgment of Barack Obama’s presidency based on a handful of off-year races is overstating the case. Trying to decipher the real meaning is something like reading tea leaves, and just as reliable. Still, they are clues and warnings, at least, for the national parties. My reading of the leaves: independents flexed their muscle and gave Obama a warning, passing health care reform is going to be a little harder but still in the cards, and New York voters deepened the Republican identity crisis. You could say this was in a part the opening blow of Obama vs. Sarah Palin 2012, and I’d have to call it an even match.