The results keep coming in. Not a lot of surprise although the numbers were on the upper side of the REASONABLE predictions. The Republicans got the House, the Democrats hold the Senate.
Some of the core highlights include:
- The House went Republican. According to CNN, Republicans will pick up more than 60 seats. The largest pickup ever was 75 in 1948 as the war ended and there had been 16 years of Democratic rule while Harry Truman pulled a rabbit out of his hat. Gingrich’s 1994 pickup was 52.
- The Senate narrowed but stayed Democratic with the split going from 59-41 to 51-47 as of 3:00 A.M EST with Colorado and Washington State still up in the air. Expect recounts in both. (Update: Colorado has been called for the Dem. Washington and Alaska remain up in the air. )
- Rand Paul made it in Kentucky.
- Kelly Ayotte won big in New Hampshire. Some count this a Palin win, but Ayotte was more moderate than her primary opponent, so it's a counter intuitive win if it must be counted as one. Palin went with gender over ideological purity on this one.
- Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell lost big to Chris Coons in Delaware. Each party pulls this when out of power by losing winnable seats by electing the more extreme candidate in the primary thereby handing it over to the other party in the general election.
- Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hung on. Again, more because of the poor candidate, Sharon Angle, who won the Republican primary. (I am listening to Harry Reid coming out swinging with fiery rhetoric as if he has been given a landslide endorsement. This guy just does not get it. Thank you Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for sending him back. What a knucklehead this guy is. Barbara Boxer admitted it was the roughest fight or her 11 runs for office, Harry. Listen and learn, sport.)
- Alaskan Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski looks like she pulled of an inexplicable write-in candidate. Tea Party Palinista Joe Miller flamed out even after playing dirty tricks on the write-in candidate proccess to try to thwart Murkowski. So Palin loses in her home state while ...
- Obama’s old senate seat in Illinois went to Republican Mark Kirk against Alex Giannoulias in a nail biter. This embarrassment is on a par with Al Gore losing Tennessee in the 2000 presidential election. In another similarity, a Green Party candidate took a couple percentage points that likely would have gone to Giannoulias that could have put him over the top on a par with Nader’s role in handing Florida to Bush in 2000.
- Pat Toomey beat Joe Sestak. Toomey is conservative .Republican candidate who gave Arlen Specter a case of the yips when he realized those with pitchforks and torches weren't for him but were "agin him" and had old Arlen bolt to the Democrats where Sestak drove the wooden steak into his chest and finished him off. Sestak had an early lead by virtue of taking Philadelphia by a huge margin last recalled in the CNN feed as 86/14. The slow returns in rural/suburban Pennsylvania pulled Toomey ahead around 12:30 A.M.
- Republican Millionaire businesswomen Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina got ax handled in California against old retread Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, respectively. California remains the Republican money and time suck that diverts energy away from more winnable situations such as Colorado. This bucks the national trend. One credible explanation was California had already tried the outsider by electing the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger and hence had a case of the yips about trying them again. And, being California, why wouldn't they equate movie acting to business? I mean, it is there business out there.
- Massachusetts, where arguably the Republican trend caught fire with Republican Scott Brown scoring a surprise win in a special election for Ted Kennedy’s seat, bucked the trend it started by staying an all democrat congressional delegation. A third party candidate in the Governor’s race muddied the waters there. Democrat incumbent Deval Patrick scored what a lot of people felt was an upset victory with 50% of the vote.
- Staunch Democratic, Progressive Russ Feingold took a bullet inWisconsin.
- John McCain dodged one in Arizona after the far right turned on him.
- Republican John Kasich flipped the Ohio Governorship into their column. Florida flipped Republican as well. Mark Rubio, the more conservative candidate will be the Republican Senator from Florida while Charlie Crist the moderate turned Independent faded badly.
- The first Latina woman, Susana Martinez will become Governor in New Mexico, flipping that from Democratic to Republican. Republican Nikki Haley became the first female Governor of South Carolina She is also a second generation Indian.
What Does It Mean Tomorrow?
James Madison is doing a happy dance. We are back to divided government as he envisioned it. Built in checks and balances against single party excess. It was a logical reaction to the times based on the experiences of the day with what was called the “Tyranny of the Majority” as inflicted upon the colonies by out of touch law makers in British Parliament.
And right now America is not at all pleased with either party. Some talking head referenced a poll that said the majority of the Republican party didn't even like the Republican party.
People are fed up with politics as usual and spending as usual. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll indicated 52% of Americans believed the economy to be the top issue. A myriad were tied for second at 8%. “It’s the economy, stupid,” as James Carville said. Not healthcare. Not Abortion. Not the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. Not the environment. Not gay marriage. Jobs and frugality. Economic efficiency.
Past governmental successes came during split government. Reagan with Tip O’Neil. Bush the better cutting tax reform deals with George Mitchell in the Senate. Clinton and Gingrich finding a way to work things out no matter the fact they fought like Burton and Taylor along the way to compromise.
What are the Risks Tomorrow?
The risks are as they always have been. The risks go to whether or not the party leaders will get it, or whether or not they will revert to past history. Will Republicans delude themselves to thinking the change was a vote FOR them rather than a repudiation of the other side? Will they delude themselves into thinking this is a mandate for their excess? That leadership should be shaken by the way in which local party members knocked off a lot of the establishment candidates and, in so doing, cost the party likely a two seat pick up in the aforementioned races in Delaware and in Nevada.
The Tea Party movement ought to also quell slightly the social issue agenda. Yeah, many of these cats are against abortion and gay marriage, but their overriding concern happens to be governmental efficiency. This was an election around economics. Government spending, deficits, and job creation. The Stimulus bill angered the daylights out of these people, and they want to see true Stimulus rather than business as usual under a new brand name.
Will Democratic Progressives rationalize the problem was not being progressive enough and demand a move to ideological purity? Will the prevailing sentiment be “We were not tough enough?” Will it be, “The other side spreads lies, the people are duped, if only they understood, they would vote for us?” That mantra insults the heartland in ways that ought not be hard to understand. It talks down to them, insinuating they are stupid. It backfires the way moralizing on social issues backfires when spewed by social conservatives.
The nation wants compromise and economic action. They want moderation not more polarizing gridlock. They do not give a hoot about who sleeps with whom or how a couple or woman handles an unwanted pregnancy right now. They care about their job security, and they are ticked off at having to tighten their own belts while Washington keeps pissing cash inefficiently. The days of blaming Bush for the economy have to end. He was not on the ballot. Period.
They are sick of harsh rhetoric and attack and blame. Bill Clinton took his licks in 1994 and brought on Dick Morris, rebranding the Nixon strategy of appealing to the Silent Majority by calling it “Triangulation.” Rove repudiated this strategy to some success. It’s time to get back to Triangulation. Yelling at each other across the divide won’t work. It works in blogs, but blogs do not reflect America. Jon Stewart gets it, as do Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. The MorningJoe Show ratings have taken off as more Americans take to this civil, conversational approach to discussing issues rather than the current conventional approach that looks like the McGlaughlin Group screamfests on steroids. MorningJoe is no Firing Line that would have been better served being titled "When Pedants Attack," but still.
Expect Republican initiatives for quick spending hits. Across the board cuts to show immediate impact. Expect a number of the Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2012, particularly in swing states to get it passed quickly.
Expect the Bush tax structure to stay in place for a set period of time. Dems will argue it is a tax cut. Reps will argue to sunset the rates is a tax increase. Lather, rinse, repeat, cha, cha, cha.
What Does It Mean for 2012?
The coasts remain firmly blue. The heartland and industrial America and Florida swung red. This is the manufacturing engine hit hard by the economic downturn. Job loss, fears of foreclosures and the like push off the idea of tax increases to overhaul healthcare. They want to make sure they have a job. Big deficits for a stimulus bill with precious little shovel ready job creation from targeted infrastructure projects ticks them off.
So those shifts to the red do not auger well for Democrats in general and Obama in specific. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida decided the last three presidential elections almost on their own, and they have all swung Republican. Illinois to boot, and that is Obama’s home court.
Predictions, Anyone? (I can’t help myself.)
John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich. He is one of 11 kids who put himself through college and worked in small business. These are the people ticked off and angry, and he really is one of them. Boehner had to pause in his closing remarks visibly in tears. Not the bite-your-lip, "I feel your pain" kind, but real ones. Scott Brown had a similar reaction after his upset victory to take Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts. He looked real. Flawed, to be sure, and the attacks will come out in the business as usual need for the politics of personal destruction, but real. And he is a businessman. He will get the House organized, if nothing else.
Gingrich was more a detached intellectual. Similarly, Republicans had no management experience as they had not controlled the house in over 40 years when they took over. Boehner will likely not make the mistakes Newt Gingrich did. How well he keeps the Tea Partiers in line remains to be seen. The hubris of inexperience coupled with believing the votes in their favor were more for them rather than against their opponent in anger is a sobering reality tough for some to grasp. The first thing Boehner will have to do is knock some sense into those incoming freshman. Gingrich could not get it done until he reached out to old process hand Bob Dole after being humiliated by Clinton in the budget showdown when those clowns shut down the government.
Barak Obama, likewise, is no Bill Clinton. It remains to be seen if he will be humbled, reflective, and find a way to get things done rather than complain the problem was poor articulation of his message rather than simply the wrong message. (See 52% economy, 8% tied for second.) Whoever has his ear better not be a yes man. Better yet, put a shock collar on him and taser the life out of him anytime he utters the words George Bush. It will be for his own good.
The Republican Establishment will work long and hard to get behind a candidate to thwart Sarah Palin. They will be stinging over the losses in Nevada and Delaware and not want a split field to allow her to run away with the nomination. Affable socon Mike Huckabee takes from lukewarm Palinistas more than from economic conservatives. Mitt Romney has the business credentials, but windsurfed social issues to the point where he will have difficulty. They should find an economic pragmatist and put everything they have behind him. Retiring Republican Judd Gregg is just such an individual with the fiscal street cred, although likely does not have the interest or the personal make up -- think Dick Lugar in 1996, although Judd does hail from New Hampshire and knows how to organize at the grass roots level.
Haley Barbour is pawing at the dirt like an oversexed bull getting ready to jump the fence and go to town. He was the Republican National Party Chairman who set up the open primaries for W Bush to draw in independents when Bush expected his challenge to be on the right from Steve Forbes which put Bush and Barbour in the hypocritical situation of having to decry the very rules they maneuvered into place once John McCain caught fire to Bush's left and Forbes imploded to Bush's right.
Bill Clinton pulled his first term out of the ditch after a slightly less stinging repudiation of his first two years than Obama just received. But Clinton did it while dropping gays in the military and healthcare reform and turning to welfare reform while the economy largely self corrected without the need for extraordinary measures. This economic cycle is far different and far deeper. Obama’s first two years did much to freeze business activity with firebrand populist rhetoric and legislative uncertainty around business rules. FDR did it as well, and that economy did not turn appreciably until Lend Lease jump started the economy before our official entrance into WWII.
Barak Obama looks way more like Jimmy Carter right now than Bill Clinton.
To read an assessment written two years ago after Obama’s election go here. That assessment closed by saying "hope for an FDR, don't be surprised if he is a Carter."
These election results ought not surprise you.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Deven McKay
Dr. Strangemom
Duane Gundrum
Tea Scrolls
MarkinKentuckiana
David Price
Salon.com
Comments
The ball is 100% in the GOP's course. Unfortunately I only see two alternative courses of action. Either the GOP will take the Fantasy Island approach of cutting taxes and balancing the budget, in which case we can throw fiscal policy out the window. End result? We're royally screwed and setting ourselves up for another depression PDQ.
The alternative is that the GOP can go back to the GW playbook and start goosing the defense industry, and substantially deteriorating international relations and our standing abroad, etc. While this might actually help the economy somewhat, it will be a repudiation of the GOP mantra that we're selling our grandchildren into an eternal slavery of indebtedness. And reckless spending on military hardware at the expense of badly needed infrastructure and domestic needs will insure the day that China speeds up its future call-in of our Treasuries in a game of economic mutual assured destruction. In which case, we're royally screwed. And in this scenario we can all move more closely into the concept of America as a fascist state.
Take your pick.
The election is over, the people have spoken. I believe they have giving the Repubs a trial, 2 years --- starting now --- if they can pass it, make something happen, hey, 2012 will be the year of the Repubs. It's a circle motion heading down the drain, nothing new, same poop different day.
I wished there was a third, even fourth party, that could get in there and really have a chance to fight, one that spoke the issues not the attack which this election was totally about, both sides in there flinging so much mud, I was ready for a bath before the year was even up!! GAWD!!!!
**PFFFFFFT** **Wanders off but not before rating**
Hopefully they'll pull their heads out of their collective asses on both sides and go, "Gee? Do you think the unemployment rate is high enough yet?"
~shaking head~ Sorry, my friend, I'm pissed at both sides right now. Feel like that old man screaming into the wind and I'm not even 40 yet.
Kill me please!
Bold initiatives may be what drives the next cycle. For example, if the GOP tries or succeeds in repealing Healthcare reform, that would cause major movement. Something has to suppress the broad demographic in the next cycle, or else it will automatically mean DEM gains.
I realize reading this that we sometimes measure our political selves (and others) by how they get things wrong, the unique personal edges to the hole in their knowledge. The left came back from WWII with the same tired Stalin apologistics and lo the poor worker rhetoric, and thus underwrote the xenophobic, cocooned 50s.
There was something rotten on the left, and it reached it's nadir with the Weathermen and the "days of rage" in Chicago.
They turned it around -- went to DC, worked in the system, raised families, embraced corny America, improved the environment, passed the Church Amendment and FOIA, watched the Cosby Show and popularized inclusion writ small but vast -- but the tea party still sees those pre-69 indicators for anyone left of Hillary.
No thinking conservative from 1952, 1960, or even 1980 would hold truck with the tea party. They are your SDS, and twice as ignorant, for they are unable to learn the lessons of the left in recent history and rely on a paranoiac complacency about a fictitious golden age rather than grapple with real issues in meaningful ways.
Rabid as the far left was in the late 60s, they had reams of ideas and complex ideologies that could be picked apart and dismantled. The tea party has no discernible plans other than to punish and control.
So I see you are a good, thoughtful man with this post, by many things. Your remarks about Boehner in particular show you to be an optimistic, pragmatic man who thinks he sees real emotion and an effective businessman in JB. Let me noodge you, Gwool: read JB's actual statenents and works over the last year. He is a petty demagogue. His effectiveness is misapplied to the politics of dissembling, opportunism, stagecraft and submission to the nutjobs who are on the ascendent. Most important, his hollow political philosophy of get nothing done, ever, is one of the most cynical and destructive approaches to serving America I have ever seen. The brownshirt tactics and shrill screed of the last few months by tea parties are because they emboldened by Boehner et al. They now he will "hold the fort" until they have power, even if all of us inside the walls starve to death.
Serious conservatives want to work out solutions. JB is not serious about anything except selling out the tea partiers to corporate interests. he's a shill your side should give the boot to. You say Obama is like Carter, and you called it. I call this: Boehner is another Delay. tickticktick until he faces charges.
You challenge us here. You are fair and smart.
FIrst of all, I applaud not only your passion, but the hard work you put into this post, the intelligence with which you wrote it and the balance of serious analysis as well as the infused Gwool humor. Very well done.
While everyone may not agree, the thing I most enjoyed about the post and the comments is that fact that I didn't hear any yelling. I'm tired of all the yelling and angry invective.
Bottom line is this: No matter who wins on election day, the clock starts ticking immediately and whoever is in charge or in the driver's seat better enjoy those 12 seconds of fame. From this point on, everyone starts carving away at and whittling down whoever gets elected. That's the only cycle of which we can be guaranteed. Show me ANY candidate who is loved MORE than they were when they were first voted into office as they face re-election and that will be a miracle. Really well done, Wooly. Congrats on a well-deserved EP (and hopefully, cover). You deserve it!
I don't the elected GOP to think anything other than the 2008 election was a "fluke." There are no new ideas, no bipartisan attempts at a solution, and no interest in investing in U.S. infrastructure.
I was absolutely shocked with the results of the Massachusetts election. Looks like Scott Brown's election was also a "fluke."
The elected GOP are going to be expected to something now, after two years of just saying no. With Obama wielding the VETO pen, don't expect the ACA to be repealed or defunded. It ain't gonna happen. Tea Parties elected GOP have no loyalty to the party establishment. John Boehner genuflecting to Nazi reenactor Iott was pretty disgusting. I'm surprised you hold Boehner is such high regard.
Unless the super rich stop talking about all the "uncertainty" that's out there, we'll have two more years of pretty much the same. If that's the case, we'll see another seismic shift shift in the house back to Democrats.
To be honest, Geoff, I really didn't feel any candidates from either party running for office offered any solutions. It was all playing defense, and talking about the past. The message was clear: "I may suck, but I'm better than my opponent."
Reporting on this like it's sports when Kentucky has elected the second coming of those who kicked blacks out of the Derby (for winning too much, ouch!) a full hundred years later and now says hey, lets kick them out of our stores, restaurants and clubs (oh, they aren't in the clubs ...) and you, and anyone who refuses to acknowledge this- is an institutional racist.
Sane people hate the baggers because they hate- and because they buy lies like candy, which you report here as if they had factual value ... the bottom line is a bunch of crackers voted in a Black Man when they were scared to death the Mummy & Dummy would destroy the economy- then, the minute he saved them they turned on him.
The closest analogy is the fool who pulls the dying hater from the water before he drowns, only to have him push him in the minute he gets his feet under him.
Old white folks spoke last night- and it was full of hate and fear.
Out here in Oregon the unemployment rate is currently 10.6%, 7th worst in the nation, and the foreclosure rate is the 3rd worst, just lagging behind Nevada and Florida.
You may have not meant to, but if your assertion was to mean that we do not have the same concerns as the heartland, perhaps you should reconsider.
We're all in this together. I'd like to believe more so that your intention was to note that, but you missed the mark with that statement.
As much as I admire the thought put into this post, I have to echo OE's reaction to your praise of John Boehner. On top of which, you wrote, "And he is a businessman. He will get the House organized, if nothing else." I truly do not understand Republicans' blind faith in business(wo)men. The financial businessmen put us into the Great Recession. While the economy was falling off a cliff, W's CEO Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, was abysmal in his reaction. And I don't have to recite Harvard MBA (that elitist!) businessman George W. Bush's track record of success in the private sector.
I'm hoping Obama does a Clinton circa 94-96 in this very similar situation, but I've been afraid from the very moment he got the nomination that he'd be another Jimmy Carter. So far, he's actually been a much better President than Carter, and under far far worse conditions, but this is gonna be the real test.
My big prediction is for 2012: Bloomberg runs for President as an Independent -- and either wins or is the deciding factor that gets Obama re-elected (as Perot was for Clinton's first election in 92). I think we'll see Bloomberg begin getting his 2012 organizing started any time now.
You say it's time to forget Bush -- sorry, no can do, because this isn't just about Bush -- this is about an economic folly that has emasculated the poor and the middle class for three decades, and pushed this country to the brink of third-world status by many measurements such as infant mortality.
What rational person could expect 30 years of Voodoo Economics to be overturned in 18 mos? But this election wasn't about reason, it was about emotion impure and simpleton, it was citizens with the emotional maturity of two-year-olds, and the attention span of a gnat. These good citizens with collective amnesia have drunk the kool-aid brewed up yet again by Republican alchemists like Karl Rove -- working this time around with unlimited budgets thanks to the infamy of the Citizens United decision.
Well, bend over, and grab your ankles, America -- you just asked "Please, sir, may I have another?"
You offered some examples of what to expect. Here's some more:
Fact: There isn't enough that can be cut to do much of anything about reducing the deficit -- no serious economist argues otherwise
Fact: Continuing the folly of the Bush tax cuts will substantially increase the deficit -- no serious economist argues otherwise
Fact: The giant sucking sound of jobs leaving this country en masse will continue unabated under our present policies -- no serious economist argues otherwise -- and those policies sure to be made even worse by corporatist Republicans
Fact: Real small businesses -- as opposed to small businesses in name only -- will continue to suffer from the credit crunch because nothing has been done to break up the big bank monopoly -- which is at this very moment still trying to stiff the public with its bad debts while retaining all its ill-gotten profits. Anyone expecting Republicans to do ANYTHING about that is a fool, tho other financial entities WILL come long for their money with long knives and sharp lawyers -- stay tuned
Fact: Republicans will continue their Party of No strategy for the next two years because they'll be able to blame Democrats who control two-thirds of the govt -- Mitch McConnell let the cat out of the bag about this by confessing Rs first priority was defeating Obama in 2012
Fact: John Boehner is no Tip O’Neil or George Mitchell -- hell, he's not even a Newt Gingrich. Boehner views "governing" as an opportunity to prove he's a better man than those Ivy-Leaguers -- fact is, he's out of his league. Anyone expecting wise leadership out of this man hasn't been paying attention -- he's in it strictly for what's in it for him -- despite the Beckian tears
But enough of this rant -- I better go write my own post -- even tho it doesn't count as real politics 'cause I'm just a blogger.
who's going to improve the economy? no one in the beltway. who's going to lead big action against global warming? no one in the beltway. who's going to realize american policies are leading america to endless and increasingly dangerous war? not america's political masters.
President Obama has screwed up in one thing: not selling the incredible number of accomplishments that he and Congress got done! He may or may not get over his idiotic elitism and inability to relate to people without a podium.
Even when talking heads were screaming for the Dems to start selling what they were doing, they just buckled, then collapsed into a giant, ineffective and uncommunicative blob. It almost seemed as if they were going out of their way to screw up as obviously and publicly as possible.
Covert racism? Back room agendas?
They got the trouncing that they deserved. But the truth of the matter is that the red states were going to revert, even if Pres Obama had initiated the Second Coming of Christ.
Now, however, the GOP is going to suffer from getting what they asked for, only two years after darned near destroying the country and the economy.
They will be in the spotlight, and all of the vicious platitudes, lying, ducking, dodging and racism that Fox and CNN have been helping them with will not help them now.
Blocking an increase in the debt ceiling, for example, will cause the US to default on it's credit and will cause a worldwide domino effect of economic collapse.
CNN and FOX will continue to give them free cheer leading and campaign boosts while posing as "news" while they really mess up on that issue.
They promised to block any increase to the debt ceiling.
If I were a lame duck representative, I would go buck wild right about now and push everything through, but something has our so-called leadership scared to death and acting like deer in the headlights.
I don't know if we will ever find out who or what has the Democratic Party frozen in fear of acting, if losing their jobs couldn't make them snap out of it.
As for whether it's Carter of FDR, hard to say. Carter might have been re-elected had the hostages been released before the election.
Yep, 'fraid so. It does not reflect well on American society.
I have to agree with Greg Correll's assessment of Boehner as petty demagogue. I think your picture of Boehner is a bit too optimistic.
Obama has made some real accomplishments, but hasn't sold them well. I see Giannoulias' loss to Kirk here in Illinois as a combination of factors, not the least of which is Giannoulias' appearance as an inept lightweight. If we'd had a strong Dem candidate in that race, it could have been a very different picture.
I am disappointed with the election results, but not surprised. The ill-advised decision that allowed so much anonymously-funded campaign ad venom alienated a lot of voters. The deep hole that Obama started with is not one we could recover from in 2 years, no matter how hard he tried.
My hope now is that some positive results can be achieved by bipartisan compromises. And I hope that we don't fall victim to poorly chosen tax cuts that jeopardize programs which could make a real difference in the economy's continued recovery. Continued gridlock could be a huge flaming economic disaster for the country, the likes of which could make the last 2 years look like a walk in the park.