2012 contest?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.

Each side has already put their own spin on last Tuesday’s vote. The Republican victories in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey were either indications of strong Republican candidates, dissatisfaction with visible economic progress, an indication of Palin’s powerful influence, or a referendum on Obama’s ambitious budget, healthcare and energy proposals.

At the very least, those votes, where independents abandoned Democrats big time, should make the Obama Administration uneasy about pushing their big plans much harder as the 2010 congressional elections inch closer. The healthcare push will get wrapped up, but will they reconsider how hard to push the next big fight, for cap-and-trade climate legislation? Both are necessary, but it’s going to take some tenacity to stick it through.

This election will not kill healthcare reform. Obama and congressional Democrats are pretty much all-in on that one by now. The House is solid, and the only remaining question is how deftly Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can dance his way around the 60-vote filibuster roadblock. These results will just make his job a tad harder, as a few fence-sitting Democratic Senators get even more nervous.

The Democratic victory in New York’s 23rd Congressional District is another matter, and muddles any clear reading. Any number of factors could explain a solid Republican district voting Democrat Bill Owens into office. Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman might have been seen as a carpetbagger—who doesn’t even live in the district—foisted on the locals by national conservatives. Maybe it was a rejection or resentment of Palin, who joined those who pressured the original Republican candidate to drop out of the race.

Palin has been persistenly out front as a national political figure since resigning as governor, but it’s hard to say that she’s been successful. Polls show her dropping instead of gaining in popularity, and now pundits will try to hang this loss on her. It’s unfair, but it’s part of being a major, and willing, player in the current conservative-moderate debate within the Republican Party. This New York race, more than anything, puts at least a question mark to the notion that the party needs to further solidify its conservative principles.

This election was just a tease for political junkies. 2010, the truly big show, is an eon away. If Obama can get the economy moving in time, make a stronger case for the spending and sacrifices in the healthcare and energy reforms, and avoid any more big initiatives after those, independent voters might just come back to his party. If not, and Palin can show real influence that helps lead her party to victory, it may just set up the battle royale that has the junkies dreaming: Obama vs Palin 2012.