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I will admit that my political punditry seems to have a French problem. The French, during its wars with Germany in the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s, were constantly mistaking the current war for the previous war. They used World War 1 strategy in World War 2 and so on. I seem to be constantly banking on the current election to be like the previous one. As a Republican, in 2002, I was optimistic at first, but turned pessimistic in the last few weeks, figuring our advantage would disappear like it did in 2000. Same for 2004. Both times, my side won big. This time, I was pessimistic up till the last week or so, and then, given some encouraging poll numbers and other developments, I got more optimistic, and kind of figured it would break like it did in 2002 and 2004.
There is absolutely no way to minimize the losses that Republicans suffered this year. They got a shellacking to end all shellackings. It has been 20 years since they have suffered a defeat as bad.
From a historical perspective, it is not actually that bad. It is a middle result for a President’s second midterm, nowhere near as disastrous as Harry Truman’s or the second midterm of Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford’s eight years. In both cases, the situations were somewhat similar. Both were confronted with unpopular wars and scandals, just like Bush. It is about the same as 1986, where Iran Contra, and the feeling that Reagan had lost control of his White House, lost the Republicans the Senate, and increased the margin of the Democrats in the House.
The blame game has already started. The hard right wing is blaming the moderates for their immigration policy and spending. The moderates are blaming the hard right’s inability to listen to the middle on issues like stem-cell research. The truth is, this is a fairly unique election in which many things came into play.
Iraq alone probably would not have been enough. People are upset about Iraq, but still most people do not want to leave before the job is done. Scandal alone would not have done it, especially since Democrats William Jefferson and Allan Mollohan faced just as many problems as any Republicans. Katrina alone was not enough, it was an isolated incident, and what lessons we are suppose to learn from it are debatable at best. Spending alone would not have done it, and it’s illogical to protest out-of-control spending by voting for people who promise to increase spending.
You put all this together, however, and it is like adding five and five and coming up with 11. Iraq was seen as a bigger problem it really was because they saw it through the frame of a Congress that could not get spending right, that could not manage a local disaster and was getting bought off by Abramoff on the side. Oh, and while they were at it, they did not appear to do enough to control a creepy old man who was hitting on 16-year-old boys.
Let me put it this way: A broken down car (Iraq) might not be such a big deal if you have some competent mechanics around (say, Congress from 2002 to 2004). But if you get the idea that the guy working on it is an incompetent who could not fix a toaster (Congress from 2004 to 2006), and with every repair, your car seems to be getting worse, you get really nervous. Even if the other mechanic (a Democratic Congress) does not have great credentials either, it might be worth the risk of trying him out.
The Democrats cannot credibly call this election a mandate for much beyond a “check” on our current direction. Unlike the Republicans in 1980, 1994 or even 2004 to some extent, the Democrats ran on nothing. Even at that, in order to win, they had to run a whole series of Democrats that could just as easily have been Republicans (i.e. former Republican Jim Webb in Virginia). If they try to govern the way Nancy Pelosi would like them to, it will lead them to disaster in 2008.
In the meantime, Republicans need to do a lot of soul searching. They need to figure out what they can do to explain themselves to voters again while not appearing to merely be sore losers. How successfully they do that will largely decide if this is a political hiccup or a long-term shift to the Democrats.
Submitted 11-09-2006
MALIBU, CA
