THIS DAY IN 1994 - REPUBLICANS TAKE OVER CONGRESS
So here are some early thought on the 2006 election results-
It will be very hard for any President to run an offensive war in the future. There is really no political upside but a tremendous downside. The enemy knows that the media will run with the casualty news and that well-placed guerrilla actions will be treated like major defeats. If terrorists can drag the fighting out long enough for the media to lament to extra effort and casualties, eventually the American people will tire of the conflict and punish the leader.
But was it really a verdict on offensive action or was it a verdict on nation-building. We won the war, but got mired in the re-building. Is the lesson to seek, destroy and then withdraw? Or is the lesson to head back to our pre-WWII isolation? What kind of isolation can we maintain in a globalized economy? Is the end result that we won’t be fighting too many wars until we’re far enough behind that the losses are greater.
The good news is that the Republican Presidential candidate can run against the nutty Nancy Pelosi, that hasn’t gotten nearly the scrutiny she deserves. If Hastert leaves he’s no real loss. This election has shown that Republicans need ideas to win and Democrats just need to be another option, so when Republicans run out of ideas, Democrats fill the gap. The biggest Democrat initiative in this campaign was to remind voters that we should only fight easy wars and they got a free pass for having voted for the one at hand. So Republicans can win again with ideas, but after failing to enact the Contract with America, Republicans won’t have an easy time convincing voters to trust them. They’ll need all new faces which would have happened if they had passed term limits. A number of the seats lost are natural Republican enclaves that will move back with a national Republican tide. Tom Delay and Mark Foley are two obvious ones and others will be available with the right candidate at the top of the ticket.
Divided government isn’t a bad thing. It’s what led to the stock market gains of the 1990s. Gridlock means that investors know exactly what playing field their on. The key is Bush deciding that he will finally veto some bills. The Republican Senate has sent too much nonsense his way in the last 6 years and you should expect it to continue during the next 2 years. If Bush can’t get the veto stamp out with this environment then he’ll disappoint the base more than he has already.
I’m not nearly as upset as I was in 1992. That night I couldn’t sleep. It’s hard to be too upset when there are very few heroes in Congressional Leadership. This may be Newt Gingrich’s rebirth moment. He can articulate how they lost their way and how they can regain it.
A Blog of Current Events and Ancient Issues.
3 comments:
Good insights, Tom. I am more frustrated with WHY the Republicans lost than with the loss. Democratic leadership should generate strong Republican gains next time around, IF the party can show up with some ideas AND the will to implement them, which is not a given. I would like to see Newt out front articulating the issues that matter to the majority and that the party has inexplicably abandoned.
I voted a straight Republican ticket as always but for the first time in my voting career I was secretly hoping for Democratic gains. It is par for the course to lose Congress in a President's sixth year and I don't mind the swing at all, especially if it means the resurgence of Newt.
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