“Every day that we delay them moving to the floor with this bill is a very, very good thing.”

Marsha Blackburn

Those are the words of U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a congressional Republican whose district includes part of Shelby County. She was speaking with The Daily News about her party’s efforts to thwart the health care reform plan that’s become President Barack Obama’s biggest domestic priority.

Some news reports trickling out over the past few days have suggested the votes aren’t there to guarantee a completed health care bill Obama could sign by the end of this year. Republicans like Blackburn are starting to argue the prospect is not a foregone conclusion, and there are several reasons for that.

Political tipping point?

Blackburn, who also hosted a telephone town hall with West Tennessee voters Thursday about health care, blasted the pending legislation the House will vote on this weekend in a conversation with reporters the same day Republicans won two closely watched statewide races.

The party captured the governor’s mansions in New Jersey and Virginia, leaving some GOP factions smelling blood and eager to press their momentum by edging aside moderate candidates elsewhere.

Even though incumbent New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, outspent him by about two-to-one, former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie was elected the state’s new governor Tuesday. And Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds lost the Virginia governor’s race to that state’s former attorney general, Republican Robert McDonnell.

The Democratic candidate in a special congressional race in upstate New York also won Tuesday night, but that race was significant because the moderate Republican candidate bowed out and endorsed the Democrat. The race also garnered national attention because hard-right Republican figures nationally rallied behind a conservative party candidate instead of the local GOP’s handpicked candidate.

State and local Republicans in Tennessee are among those convinced a tipping point among voters is at hand.

It’s why Blackburn, repeatedly described as one of the most conservative voices in the House, insists Republicans have won the equivalent of hundreds of small victories in the health care debate: one for every day a final bill has not been voted on.

“I think people are indeed paying close attention,” Blackburn said. “And the dramatic swing that you’ve seen in the mood from where voters were last year to today is that the change they have seen in Washington is not the kind of change they wanted. I fully believe that this will impact the way we move forward.

“We have to win this fight every single day. They only need to win it once.”

Sending signals

In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Republican Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said the Virginia and New Jersey wins sent a message to the upper body.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so, apparently, is the significance of election returns. To Corker, this week’s news amounts to a warning sign about Obama’s expansive ambitions and sweeping new government programs.

“I think people across this country are very concerned about the policies that this health care bill would put forth,” Corker said. “I would ask my friends on the other side of the aisle to stop what we’re doing right now. Let’s throw this bill aside.”

Those and other comments like them reflect a party that’s rediscovering its sea legs after the country’s electoral map seemed to be transformed with Obama’s win one year ago this month. National pundits have narrowed the storyline into the GOP facing an identity crisis, wracked from within by take-no-prisoners firebrands versus electable pragmatists.

Memphis attorney and Shelby County Republican Party Chairman Lang Wiseman said it’s more nuanced than that.

Lang Wiseman      

He said voters weary of bank bailouts, economic uncertainty, little to nonexistent credit and rising unemployment are increasingly motivated by an independent streak.

“I do see an increasing rise in the number of people who don’t affiliate with either party, and I think there’s some potential realignment going on with the various coalitions who identify with one another on different issues,” he said. “Everybody’s always known that elections are won and lost in the middle. To some extent, you have to balance that between your base and appealing to more moderate voters, and the question is how you do that.

“We can win on issues. It’s just managing our tone, more than anything.”

Wiseman said this week’s election wins for the party are an important barometer that should not be ignored.

“I think it was a great night … in terms of where the country is headed,” he said. “People say, ‘Well, it’s not a referendum on Obama.’ And in a large measure it’s not directly. But it is a referendum in terms of people seeing that there’s been this hard shift toward a more government-activist type of flavor to things. And they don’t really like it that much.”