An apt summary of the election

[troysvihl]

Over in Tim Blair's comment section, a guy named Dave S. said this:

"The Republicans lost and the Democrats won for the same reason -- they distanced themselves from their base. "

That's the sentence of the year, in my opinion.

I think that is dead-on. I also think the GOP will have an easier time fixing their problem than the DNC.


http://instapundit.com/archives2/2006/11/post_218.php

[troysvihl]

Ok, I just love these quotes:

"When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government."

"At least Republicans now know where the 'Bridge to Nowhere' leads: to the political wilderness. "

[drisley]

I think the GOP has a great opportunity here to rework itself. Hopefully they don't become too distracted by the constant barrage of subpoenas which is likely to rain on them by the Democrats now.

[Computer Hobby]

Well duh. Of course the Republicans lost because they became separated from their base. Unfortunately the base decided they wanted competent, honest government. You really can't expect the Turd Blossom Republicans to deliver competent, honest government.

The real question is can Republicans separate themselves from the Turd Blossom Republicans. I am not so sure they can.

[Computer Hobby]

Here are some numbers I picked up on the Washington Monthly site comparing exit polling done in 1994 relative to the 1992 elections and exit polling done the other night relative to the 2004 election.

1994 House elections exit poll results: (% point change over 1992 House elections)

men +10 points
women + 2 points
white +8 points
black -2 points
Asian – 5 points
Hispanic + 11 points
Conservatives + 9 points
Liberals – no change
Moderates – no change
Independents + 11 points

2006 House elections exit poll results: (% point change over 2004 House elections)

men + 6 points
women + 4 points
white + 5 points
black – no change
Asian + 6 points
Hispanic + 14 points
Conservatives + 3 points
Liberals + 4 points
Moderates +5 points
Independents + 8 points

I am not sure we can draw the conclusion that the Republican base abandoned the Republican office holders as much as nearly everybody moved to the Democrats.

I think the most important statistic about Tuesday's election is that the Republicans didn't pick up a single Democratic seat in Congress or in the Senate. Not one. That tells me the election was all about the Republicans.

[mbossman2]

the most telling #'s I have seen come of this election are:

In an Election Day survey, Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen found that 53 percent of voters said the Republicans didn't share their values, and 47 percent said the Democrats didn't share theirs. "There's a strong sense that the two parties are out of touch with the mainstream," Schoen said.

article (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15983475.htm)

this does not bode well for either party.

[Computer Hobby]

My guess is that the politicians in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, share the same Washington values. I am hoping I am wrong, but Mary Matlin and James Carville sleep in the same bed.

The next two years are a test for the Democrats. If they act like Republicans we will all need to examine our government structure. It has to be more accountable than it is now.

[Computer Hobby]

I just read an op-ed (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-tomasky12nov12,0,3828822.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail) in the LA Times that takes issue with the "THE OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED VERSION of the Democrats' victory last week, touted on television Tuesday night and repeated here and there in the following days . . . that the party won by deftly running moderates in red states. This argument implied that the presumed incoming speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), had rather tackily seized power on the backs of candidates who actually held her liberalism in high contempt and were just itching to inaugurate a showdown over gay marriage roughly 17 minutes after taking the oath of office.

"But that's not quite true. In fact, of the 27 Democratic candidates for the House who won outright Tuesday, only five can truly be called social conservatives. Far more are pro-choice, against the Iraq war and quite liberal. Why, there's even a woman who was tossed out of a presidential event for wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt (New Hampshire's Carol Shea-Porter), and a fellow who ran an alternative newspaper and who proudly supports affirmative action — in Kentucky, no less (John Yarmuth)."

You might want to read the article. It suggests that "(m)any Democratic winners last week, including some of the (social conservatives), are strong economic populists. The day after the election, (Heath) Shuler appeared with Ohio's Democratic senator-elect, Sherrod Brown — a man whose liberalism is offered so unapologetically as to seem from a bygone age — to tout their shared opposition to NAFTA. Brown and (Jon) Tester, along with Vermont's Bernie Sanders, Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar and (more or less) Pennsylvania's Bob Casey Jr., make up a freshman class more economically liberal than perhaps any since 1958."

The author notes that "the Democrats have a long, long history of disagreeing on social issues while agreeing for the most part on economic matters. And while I'm certainly not advocating a tent so big as to accommodate today's reactionaries — who in any event are Republicans now — it is clearly the case that the Democratic Party has endured far more severe disagreements on social issues than those that face it now."

In short the candidates the Democrats elected are Democrats on truly core Democratic economic and security issues.

Sorry Troy, James Webb isn't a Libertarian in Democratic clothing. He is much more like a lot of Democrats who left the Democratic party in 1994.