It’s still election night
Well, I’m back at my computer. Not a moment too soon. I’m writing this very quickly; apologies if it’s kind of sketchy.
Expectations were so high that reality couldn’t quite match it (particularly upset at how badly my guy Bielat did against Barney Frank).
On the other hand, it’s still pretty darn good. Most of the races have gone as expected so far, and it looks as though the accepted wisdom—Republicans control the House, Democrats retain slight majority in the Senate—may be exactly the way it goes down.
I haven’t had time to really think hard about it, but my first impression is that many of the blue states that went red tonight were blue collar blue states—Ohio and Pennsylvania, for example, as well as Illinois. Non-blue-collar blue states such as Massachusetts remain every bit as blue as ever (Scott Brown the lone island of red), and my prediction is that California will remain true blue as well, when all the returns are in.
This indicates to me that Democrats who switched were paying attention almost entirely to the economy, in particular their own jobs, rather than some permanent switch to a more conservative way of thinking. And many of the Republicans and Independents who flirted with the idea of Obama as moderate, healing force have learned their lesson.
The governorships are going strongly Republican, but that’s not a surprise, either. Governorships tend to be slightly more conservative in general (even Massachusetts has had the odd Republican governor, as have New York and California). This year, with its enormous fiscal challenges, people want to try some belt-tightening at the state level.
California is a heartbreaker: big red counties with all the populous fruit-and-nut counties going blue.
Boxer won with San Fran, Napa, People’s Republic of Marin, Sonoma, Yolo, Lake, Contra Costa, Imperial (illegals), San Mateo, LA….
The retrenchment is: democrats are even more solidly a metropolitan power with republicans solidly holding rural votes.
As I remarked on another thread: The nation is more divided than ever with red going infra-red and blue going ultra-violet.
If you look at the maps, the country has gone red with well-populated outposts of blue in the coastal urban-axes. It’s two “European” countries with America in between.
New Mexico, my state, is a heartbreak as well. The multitudes of “Santa Fe” transplanted Californians went with the local Maoist “Shining Path” (no exaggeration) racial nativist voters to elect hard leftists. Southern New Mexico, oil and gas producers and ranchers, defeated Harry Teague to put in a Republican again.
I am a fan of “gridlock”: I can run my own life.
neo – I think your reading is correct. The Republicans got butchered in “elite” blue states (Massachusetts, New York, California, etc.). And as for the rest, as Larry Sabato just said on TV, 75% of it was the terrible economy.
On the really hopeful side, very interesting things are happening in Wisconsin. This is one state that may be amenable to a more substantive reading. At Commentary, someone said that, odd as it sounds, after tonight “Wisconsin would have to be considered a red state.”
Well, that’s too strong (like saying Colorado is a blue state after 2006-08), but the state will probably be very much “in play” in 2012. Whatever happened in Wisconsin, it would be good to know in more detail. Feingold, from what I’ve seen, simply got his rear handed to him.
Just pause for a moment and think about that. In “purple state” Nevada, Reid won pretty handily, but in deep blue (and yes, blue collar) Wisconsin, their long-time liberal lion was unceremoniously tossed out. What the heck happened in Wisconsin?
But after all the dust settles we need to have some idea of the answers to these questions because we need to divine a strategy for 2012.
For better or worse, I suspect, as you said, that what is happening here is pretty simple: blue collar voters are anxious about the economy, and conservatives and conservative-leaning independents who flirted with Obamaist “centrism” have wised up.
What does this tell us?
First, unrelated to the prior points, we should never underestimate the power and effectiveness of the Democratic mobilization machine. We need to get our GOTV operations finessed into a well-oiled machine to match the Dems.
Second, if the economy improves significantly, 2012 is going to be very rough. There is no sign that that will happen, but who knows. We need, in short, an effective rhetorical strategy for attributing economic gains to Republican gains in 2010 at both the national and state level. Since the GOP is “the stupid party,” I have my doubts that we’ll be ready to match wits with the President when silly season comes again in 2012.
Third, and most importantly for me, is the ominous implications that – from my subjective perspective – began with the defeats in NY-23 and in Murtha’s district last year. This was amplified tonight by the clock-cleaning we suffered in West Virginia. The problem is this: even granting that we win the Presidency in 2012, we are almost certainly not going to have a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate. The votes we will need to repeal Obamacare are going to so-called “conservative Democrats” like Joe Manchin. Although the blue dogs got butchered tonight, they will learn from Manchin’s strategy and will make all sorts of disingenuous Bart Stupak-like windy promises, and then probably tick up slightly in their representation.
Point is, there is no such thing as a conservative Democrat. This was the biggest lesson the nation needed to learn from the Obamacare debacle, and although places like Wisconsin and maybe Ohio are beginning to get the picture – and that is not insignificant – it isn’t a sure thing whether the lesson has really been learned. Again, if the economy does better, blue dogs can claim that they were bipartisan and bucked the President and blah blah, and “go Manchin,” whereupon they maintain effective veto power in the Senate, at least.
And will Joe Manchin (or Ben Nelson, or Joe Lieberman, or Mary Landrieu) vote to repeal Obamacare? Every sane person knows the answer: Never in a million years.
This puts Republicans in a tricky position, because their majority position in the House means they effectively control the agenda, so blue dogs can simply tether their wagon to the GOP steamroller and get all benefit with no cost. Senators, in turn, will try to ride on their coattails.
The key – it seems to me – is to get the Senate “conservative” Democrats on record conspicuously opposing the things they will promise to support in 2012. Senators Toomey, Rubio, and Johnson should be out there persistently calling BS on their blue dog Senate colleagues.
Since most of the Republicans positive goals will be unattainable the next two years, they need a strategy of bait and switch running from the House to the Senate, forcing uncomfortable votes and sparking a war of words.
We can get a cheap victory – maybe inadvisable; I haven’t thought through the strategy yet – by passing a repeal bill in the House and forcing the Democrats (including Joe Manchin) to vote it down. That’s risky because it be portrayed as extreme, but I’m inclined to think we need to be bold right now.
We then force the Senate to vote on very tough and lean budgets, and again we see what the Manchins are made of.
From a purely cynical standpoint, the House Republicans can go ahead and pass the Ryan Roadmap in toto and feel no heat. It has no chance in the Senate. It looks serious, and that’s the game plan. The Republicans need to follow through by looking serious (since there isn’t much they can positively do), and thus elicit the Democrats intrinsic unseriousness.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for now.
None of Obama’s agenda will be repealed.
None of it will be conceded.
Obama will climb into his Spider-Hole and fight an insurgent war of attrition against the noob republicans with every dirty insinuation and trick in the book.
I predict tomorrow he will “delegitimize” the Republican victories as products of fear, racism and corporate greed.
America did no live up the the goodness that is Obama and he will be very disappointed in us….
Gray, I’m afraid you’re right.
Kolnai, we need to get over being the Stupid Party if we’re to defeat the Vicious Party. Time to think on that tomorrow!
One thing I really must insist on: we cannot let the Vicious Party continue to control the language of the debate: e.g., healthcare ‘reform’, dems = ‘progressives,’ blue states are ‘red[neck],’ Red[Commie] states are [true]’blue,’ AND so on.
And one other: we cannot keep letting them get us on the back foot in debate: they use the same trick all the time, attacking the Rep. and maneuvering him/her into defending himself. Drives me crazy. As soon as you let them get you on the defensive, they totally control the argument, and they keep the topic nailed on your alleged shortcomings.
This is Debating 101; I can’t believe the Republicans fall for it again and again. Especially when there’s such a Vast number of faults to attack Them for. Y’know?
Who are their campaign strategists, anyway; democrat moles?
Question 1: Did Prop 19 affect turnout in CA?
Question 2: What happened to Maxine Waters?
Thoughts: West should be able to help deflect the race card and perhaps loosen the hold of the Dem machines on some blacks. Charles Lollar did well against Steny Hoyer in southern Maryland, but he couldn’t break the PG county machine. Still, people are noticing that blacks don’t have to be Dem (or crooks and race baiters).
Manchin will not vote for a cap and trade, and he will be very alert to EPA encroachments on power. If health care issues are presented properly, he may be for significant defanging if not outright repeal.
Redistricting is ahead of us. Gerrymandering and voter fraud need to be kept on the agenda.
Gray,
Merkel told Obama to suck eggs when he tried to pressure her into his free spending agenda. The German economy is recovering. Unemployment is the lowest in 18 years and Germans are looking at immigration law changes that will bring in more skilled workers. How will Obama stand up to questioning on these things. I don’t think he can call her a scaredy cat or a racist.
So sorry about Barney. He epitimizes what is wrong with our political system and yet the lock stepping academics around Boston don’t realize it.
“I don’t think [Obama] can call [Merkel] a scaredy cat or a racist.”
Obama can (and will) call anyone a racist. It’s what those people *do*.
I seriously object to the Red/Blue color game, and refuse to paint Leftists with blue. In the 15 or so years since this began, Red/Blue has become entirely institutionalized; see all the references thereto in this thread. We all understand why Dems don’t want to be “Reds”, but we let it happen anyway. Play the game by their rules? Kid me not.
I was just thinking about the color game, too!
It just goes against my gut, to call the Vulgar Marxist states – blue. They are red, red like the USSR flag, damn it. I always have a mental block when reading about Red states vs Blue -in my mind they are reversed.
One good counter to the “Party of No” theme would be for the House to pass a bill on tort reform of medical malpractice. This will be a hard one for all Senate Democrats to vote against, so I would predict it would pass the Senate by a narrow margin. Obama will veto it.
Then run ads with Howard Dean, MD and former Democratic Party chairman, stating that the reason Obamacare didn’t tackle tort reform was that the Democrats didn’t want to offend the trial lawyers, who shovel a lot of campaign contributions to the Democratic Party.
That will put Obama and the Democrats between a rock and a hard place.