2010 Election Review

I think this pretty much sums it up

Picture stolen from Ace.  A huge Republican wave swept over the nation yesterday.  Republicans gained at least 61 House seats (I think there are still ten too close to call), 5 Senate seats including Barack Obama's old seat in Illinois (not counting Scott Brown's pickup in January), and 6 governorships (Democrats lost 7; Rhode Island went Independent).  The most readily apparent statistic is the House pickups.  This is the largest Republican gain in the House in 70 years (1940), and the greatest overall number of Republicans in the house since 1946 (the election after WWII ended and the nation realized it was sick of Roosevelt's New Deal policies).  The 5 Senate pickups were a good, not great haul.  As significant as the House swing and total is, an even more significant statistic is governorships: the total number of Republican Governorships (29) are the most ever, and by lucky chance, it is happening in a Census House District redraw year.  To cap that, Real Clear Politics claims that the Most Significant Statistic is the Republican gains in the statehouses where

With races outstanding in New York, Washington and Oregon, Republicans have flipped at least 14 chambers, and have unified control of 25 state legislatures. They have picked up over five hundred state legislative seats, including over 100 in New Hampshire alone.

and they summarize:

Finally, the GOP will control or have a say in almost all of the states that are gaining or losing seats. Democrats will control Massachusetts, where a Democrat must be eliminated regardless, and perhaps Illinois, which may or may not lose a seat. Meanwhile, Republicans will control over a dozen newly-drawn seats, and chose almost a dozen more seats to be eliminated districts.

Last night's GOP wave devastating for Democrats, but it could not have come at a worse time. If the GOP takes full advantage of this opportunity, it could even expand upon its current Congressional majorities further in 2012.

It's also important to note that it's not just the quantity of the Republican wave, but also the quality.  Because of Tea Party pressure, the Republican lineup was much more conservative than it would have been: Marco Rubio (Florida), Rand Paul (Kentucky), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania), and Mike Lee (Utah) are all Tea Partiers.  I have no idea how many House members are, and how many candidates not backed by the Tea Party were still compelled to campaign more conservatively. 

So, now we have 3/5 of the governorships in Republican hands, a House Majority of at least 45, and 47 Republican senators.

The Senate was the one area where Republicans thought they could do better, and the Tea Party is part of the problem, if problem it be:

• In Delaware, in the race to fill Joe Biden's old seat, Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell beat popular Congressman Mike Castle in the primary, only to lose to Chris Coons in the general election.  Polls showed that Mike Castle would probably have beaten Coons handily, however Mike Castle is a super RINO.
• In Nevada, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was thought to be very vulnerable.  He is one of the most disliked politicians in the country.  The Tea Party candidate, Sharon Angle, won the Republican nomination.  She was known to be a strong fiscal hawk, but unfortunately, she evidentally was a little flaky.  I don't know off the top of my head what was flaky about her.  Anyway, she never really caught on in Nevada, and the neck-and-neck race between two disliked candidates turned out in Reid's favor in the end.  This would have been a very satisfying win, that before the primaries, Republicans thought was very doable.
• In Alaska, Tea Party candidate Joe Miller won the Republican primary against incumbant Senator Lisa Murkowsky.  Alaska is a very Republican state, and everyone thought the Tea Party candidate had the seat in the bag.  But, then Murkowsky decided to run as a write-in candidate.  A winner hasn't yet been declared, but it's clear that semi-RINO Murkowsky is going to win.  This is very mystifying to me.  I don't know what the downside of Joe Miller is.  This is still a Republican win, but not as good of one as we hoped it would be.

The question is, did the Tea Party addition to these races hurt or help Republicans?  Two more wins for Republicans still would not have flipped the Senate, and the Republicans would have diluted conservative strength, particularly Mike Castle in Delaware.  This may be a situation that Jeff likes to see, where losing keeps the brand pure.  I tend to agree with that point of view here, but am not sure.

This points out a shift that has been happening in American politics and greatly accelerated this election cycle: the two main parties are becoming increasingly polarized.  Along with Tea Partiers 'purifying' the Republican brand, 28 of the 54 members of the House who call themselves Blue Dog Democrats (ie conservative) were thrown out of office by Republicans.  When I was younger, both the parties had strong conservative and liberal wings: conservative Dixie Democrats kept their northeastern McGovern liberal brethren in check, and old school Establishment Republicans (the original Civil Rights leaders) kept the fire-breathing nuke-em Goldwater fundamentalists in check.  I'm not sure, but I think being able to see a real difference between the parties is a good thing, though, for better or for worse, the spirit of cooperation and compromise is in tatters.

Now, what's next for Republicans?  Mark Kirk's win in Illinois will be effective immediately, so as of today, there are 42 Republicans in the Senate and Scott Brown is no longer the only vote maintaining a filibuster.  Melkor probably knows more about this than I do, but of the two parts of Congress, at least right now, it's probably better to be in control in the House than in the Senate.  Bills originate in the House.  Republicans can make sure that the bills are to their liking, at least to begin with.  They can throw bills out there that make Democrats define themselves as super liberals to oppose, or force Obama to veto, further defining them.  Since Harry Reid is still the leader of the Senate, Obama can't totally use Congress as a foil like Clinton did with the Republican Congress he was up against after '94.  Republicans will hopefully be able to defund Obamacare, but they won't be able to overthrow it yet.  They will stop Cap 'n' Trade in its tracks, and they should be able to put a significant break on Stimulus spending.  But, they won't be able to take the huge steps that will still be needed to get our financial house in order.  They'll only be able to control further bleeding.

They need to be loudly and proudly doing that or there will definitely be a third party break by the Tea Party in 2012, and after that, as King Louis the something or other said, the deluge.

One additional thing to consider and look forward to is that in a normal year, this wouldn't have been a good year for Republicans in the Senate.  They had to defend a lot more seats than the Democrats.  But, this was such a good year for them that they successfully defended all their seats and had a shot at flipping the Senate.  In 2012, things will be MUCH worse for Democrats regarding who has the most seats to defend.  If feelings are still as amped as they are now,...Red Storm Rising, baby!!!

Republican Wave to Continue?

The second steal from Hot Air: We'll soon get a chance to see if the wave against President Hope 'n' Change is rolling on or not.  Two Special House Elections in Dem territories are happening in May.  In deep blue Hawaii's urban Honalulu district, Republican Charles Djou is leading two Democrats, 36% to 28% to 22%.  This is a winner-take-all election, and according to the article, the Democrats are hammering each other as hard as they are hammering Djou, so this could be a fluke win in an odd election arrangement.  But still, a Republican hasn't represented Hawaii at the national level since 1991, so a win would still be a definite message in Obama's alleged home state.

The second race is for deceased EX-Marine scumbag John Murtha's seat in Pennsylvania.  Murtha was Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District's representative from 1974 until his death earlier this year(!) who famously accused Marines of being cold-blooded killers in the Haditha massacre controversy in 2006.  Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1 in this district, but according to the KOS poll on May 1, Republican Tim Burns was leading Democrat Mark Critz 46%-40%.  A win here would be another slap in the face to Democratic leadership, and a sign that the awakening of fiscally responsible conservatives has not yet passed. 

Go Guys!

Watch This Election

Teddy Kennedy died in August, '09.  This was as the national debate over the Democrats' National Health Care Plan kicked into high gear and Republican resolve against it began to harden.  Democrats realized they were going to need every single vote they had to push the thing forward, and Obama as well as Teddy Kennedy himself shortly before he died, pressured Mass Gov. Deval Patrick to bend Massachusetts' own rules and fill the spot with an interim senator until elections could be held.   A Democrat named Paul Kirk was appointed.  He is not important as he is ineligible to run as the successor.  He was only there to rubber stamp anything Dems wanted him to rubber stamp until the election for Kennedy's replacement could be completed.

Since then, the only mystery has been which Democrat would be nominated to succeed Kennedy.  After all, this heavily blue state voted for Obama 62%-36%.  Massachusetts hasn't had a Republican senator since 1979.  The Special Election being held this month to fill Ted Kennedy's seat ought to be a gimme for Democrats; and that's been the thinking for most of this six month campaign season.  But, with the great rise in anger over Democrats' determined efforts to push America farther into Socialism, the standard thinking may be about to be turned on its head: Republican State Senator Scott Brown has been under the radar most of the campaign season, as Republicans always are in Massachusetts, but, in the first poll for this race, Rasmussen showed him trailing the Democrat Martha Coakley by only 9%.  Sounds like a lot, but not for a Republican in Massachusetts.  Since that poll, it appears that the race has been tightening.  Check out Ace for an analysis.

OK, I'm getting repetitive with my superlatives, but the implications of a Brown victory on Jan 19th (I think) would be huge: A Republican taking 'The Liberal Lion's' place in deepest blue Massachusetts, who would be the 41st filibustering vote on any new version of the Health bill sent to the Senate, enabling the blockage of the bill Harry Reid named "the Kennedy Health Bill", would confirm that a tidal shift to the Right far bigger than the shift to the Left that occurred in '08 is about to happen, or actually is in-process. 

Conversely, even a close Brown loss (by less than 10%) would show that the electorate is turning, but just not as extremely fast as a victory would indicate.

Pray for Change RTPrs!