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Recap:
Not only did the
Democrats take the House, they have also taken the Senate, and overturned
Republican domination in the state legislatures. The Democratic party
did not lose a single incumbent Senate seat, did not lose any incumbent House
seats, and did not lose any governorships. A
few examples of initiatives where progressive attitudes prevailed: the strength
of the Missouri vote on stem cell research, a new TABOR initiative in Maine
failed, Arizona defeated a gay marriage ban, and a medieval ban on abortion failed
voter scrutiny in S. Dakota. All this despite the
gerrymandering by the GOP over the last decade. How? 32 thousand Democrats voted. 24 thousand Republicans
did. 60% of Independent votes went to Democrats as well as 30% of evangelicals.
This was a
historical electoral rebuke, a sobering indictment of the NeoConservative
movement, and a personal message for Pres. Bush that his job is to represent
all the people, not just his favorites. Yesterday,
Americans showed that Hope conquered fear of change. That’s a very, very good
result. Americans know we can do better. Reason
overcame bullying. Fair play is more than something you teach grade schoolers
to do at recess. Voters will not
tolerate extreme partisanship and they expect accountability. Today
Nancy Pelosi used the phrase “govern with
partnership not partisanship” in her Day After speech. She smiled
but used her velvet hammer voice promising the swamp will be drained, meaning
the Ethics Committee will be re-empowered, and civility and order would return
to the House. President
Bush must have thought she was referring to him personally, his voice and tone
both defensive and joking to reduce tension in his Day After speech. Maybe that
worked in college, but it didn’t look presidential or thoughtful. He admitted to an electoral “thumping”,
but didn’t seem affected that voters had rejected his performance and priorities, not just a failed game plan
by The Architect to win another campaign. In addition, he actually said that
when he came to Washington in 2001 he hoped to improve the tone in politics and
maybe now there would be some! Yes, the Great Divider still suffers from
denial. Last night,
Bill Bennett and others were already claiming that the only reason these DEM
candidates won was because 1) the war in Iraq was going badly and 2) they are conservative Democrats. Bennett is particularly
annoying because he confuses politics with religion but isn’t a good rep for
either. But these
Democrats are not conservatives. They are moderates, if not liberals. Here are
a couple of examples: Ohio’s new DEM Senator Sherrod
Brown has a National Journal ‘liberal rating’ of 84.2 from his voting record in
the House. Missouri’s new DEM Sen. Claire McCaskill is a former prosecutor and
state auditor who as a single mother raised three daughters, so she can
multitask, but the GOP branded her too liberal for Missouri on taxes and the
war. Montana’s new DEM Senator Jon Tester opposes a gay marriage ban,
opposes the Patriot Act, is a pro-choice, economic populist. Just because he
wears a flat top haircut and is an organic farmer doesn’t make him
conservative. The future Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia is similar to Tester, an
anti-Bush war, economic populist. The so-called NeoConservatives held all the institutional advantages of
power, had tons more $$$$ and still lost soundly. They’ll blame the Iraq war they
so hotly defended, not bad policy, not their own deceit, failure, hypocrisy and
incompetence. Just two days ago, the GOP claimed DEMs were ‘too
liberal’ for Americans. Now they’re conservatives? Americans have moved Congress back towards the center, and the ripple
effect in both parties will take some time to sort itself out. To a lot of newly unemployed Republicans the sudden resignation of Def.
Sec. Rumsfeld the day after the Election was cold comfort, since much voter
anger on Iraq was generated by Rumsfeld’s cocky performance and Bush’s stubborn
refusal to make any changes at all. Even as Bush was joking at his press
conference about Rove not working as hard as he should have on this election,
party operatives no doubt wondered how many GOP seats they might have retained
had Rumsfeld been replaced earlier. By announcing Rumsfeld’s resignation the day after a sobering electoral
rout, the White House managed to drain some of the news energy about the end of
the 12-year Republican domination of Congress - largely because of the Bush43
presidency. As
one pundit said this morning, if only the White House was as good at war
planning as they are at spinning the media. So now the ex-CIA chief and current president of Texas A&M Bill
Gates will begin clearing debris from Hurricane Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. He still
has debris from Iran Contra clinging to his
coat. Once again, Bush43 reaches back to Bush41 administration for rescue. It
will be interesting to see how the disgruntled military responds, and whether
this is more Bush43 lip service to working with Congress, something the White
House avoided even we he enjoyed rubber stamp status. Many
of us look forward to progress on national security, a fair and sustainable
economy, real energy policy and conservation, more transparency and
accountability in government and a vision for the greater common good. Now that
moderate voters have rediscovered their voices and a new generation of young
voters has come of age in turbulent times, the prospect for making government
work more efficiently are much better than a few days ago. KwC
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