So we just finished the first of many political races that will all be deemed, “the most important race of the mid-terms” or “a bellweather for the upcoming season” or some other political spin term. In Florida’s 13th Congressional District, Alex Sink (D) tried valiantly, yet unsuccessfully, to win an up-for-grabs seat away from a historically Republican district. David Jolly (R) took the race by two percentage points. Now each side will go into messaging madness to get their own political spin on the results. I’ll break out a few of them for you: Democrats -

1. Getting within two percentage points is not a bad showing at all for a district so heavily favoring Republicans (they’ve held it for 60 years). Also in an off-year election cycle, which is never tilted towards their side.
2. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the money poured into the race ($8.8M) was tilted in the Republican’s favor as well ($5.14M vs $3.75M). Is $1.3 million dollars enough to buy a couple of percentage points? Who’s to say.
3. The Republicans tried to make this a referendum against Obamacare, like pretty much everything else, but current polling on the topic shows Americans support for the program is still holding steady with a slight majority of the country approving of it or thinking it doesn’t go far enough (which does count for their side).

Republicans -

1. David Jolly won. Even though some Republicans had already begun tearing him down in the face of what looked like a possible upset, Jolly pulled through and the Republicans hold onto their seat and draw first blood for this campaign season.
2. No matter what national polling says, Republicans will claim this as a victory against Obamacare, which will worry and soften a number of Democrats across the country. Since the GOP only needs a six-seat swing in the Senate to take control, the Democrats are staring at a tough slog ahead.
3. For the so-called “establishment” Republicans, Jolly is a lucky win for them, because the last thing they need is another fire-brand Tea Party candidate to breath even more life into the far-right uprising. The GOP needs to close ranks coming into the mid-terms and this could be a good starting point for them.

This is only the beginning of the mid-term election season and many months lay ahead, but the winds of change have shown the campaign season is starting up earlier and earlier each time around, meaning the political spin goes needs to go faster and faster. In regards to Presidential elections there are some in the beltway that refer to the big seat as a “permanent campaign”, meaning once you are in the chair you are basically running for re-election for yourself or your party each and every day until you’re gone. The key to navigating the political waters raging ahead of us is to dig beneath the commercials, flyers and passionate punditry. Go look at the reasoning and documents these people are pointing to, if they have any proof at all, and see what makes sense to you. Both parties are looking at the same documents through filtered lenses so they can see only what they want to see, but you need to have your eyes wide open and clear. When you can look directly at a chart showing month-over-month job growth (albeit smaller than hoped) since Obama took office, don’t let anyone fool you with statements about the economy being in a state of decline since he took office. And when you can look at the NSA situation and the incredibly close watch the current administration keeps on the press, don’t let anyone else cheer them on with “the most transparent administration in history” line. Step off the political spin machine. Take a look from the outside and you’ll see a whole bunch of folks inside just staring at each other, instead of outside at us, the public.