My general view is that there has been too much made of the result of the midterm election. I hope Republicans do not overreach in governance to the same degree that they (and the perpetually hyperventilating media) have in their interpretation of its meaning. If they do, they will likely be defeated in two years, and, if they don't, they will likely be defeated in two years anyway. Herewith some more or less random observations that I think tend to support this view.
1. It's been known for a long time that this would be a difficult year for Democrats. Six years ago--the length of a Senate term--they won every Senate election anyone thought they might win and a few that no one thought they could win. Which is why they were this year defending seats in states like Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, and Alaska. In 2016, the line-up turns over: there will be 34 US Senate races, 24 of them for seats currently held by Republicans, seven of those in states Obama carried twice. If my life depended upon naming the party that will have a majority in the Senate in 2017, I'd feel nervous, but I also know which one I'd choose. The same goes for the Presidency.
2. For a long time, polling confirmed what geography indicated. Yet for some reason people seem stunned--or, in the case of Republicans, giddy--now that it's happened. It's as if a weatherman predicted snow and cold in January and then everyone is amazed when the weather turns snowy and cold.
3. There are historical reasons, too, for supposing that what happened on Tuesday is less than extraordinary. The midterm election held in the sixth year of a two-term Presidency is typically awful for the President's party. In 1966, LBJ's Democrats lost 47 seats in the House. Eight years earlier, President Eisenhower's Republicans had lost 48 House seats and 13 Senate seats. Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, as in 1998, when Republicans were making asses of themselves by impeaching Clinton. But add the so-called "six-year itch" to the list of factors working in favor of the GOP.
4. In the recent past, Republicans have had the upper hand and blown it by nominating crackpots who spoke their mind on such topics as sexual assault and pregnancy. It appears they have dropped that losing habit. Instead, they downplay their support for absurd "Personhood Amendments," or purport to have changed their minds about them "at the state level." Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate in Kentucky, jabbering about the sacred secret ballot, declined to say whether she voted for Obama. And, in Iowa, the Democratic candidate, a lawyer, sneered that the retiring Republican whose job he wanted is just a farm boy who never went to law school.
This is my backhanded way of admitting that candidates matter and, this time 'round, the Republican ones were less manifestly more ridiculous.
5. This morning, on NPR, Ken Rudin, the so-called Political Junkie, allowed the truth of item 3 above before insisting, in defense of the Republicans Rising theme, "But this just feels different." It's hard to account for the "feelings" of others but I wonder whether he should consider the possibility that "this feels different" mainly because it occurred earlier this week, as opposed to a couple of generations ago. Anyway, I am more inclined to trust data. We just had fifteen Senate elections in states Obama carried twice. Democrats won twelve of them, many by wide margins. Of congressional districts carried by Obama that also elected a Democrat to the US House two years ago, Republicans were able to win ten--ten, out of more than 200.
I agree with Ryan Lizza. The election doesn't show that Republicans have turned a corner. It shows that the country is divided, that the division is geographical, that "control" of the Senate is apt to switch back and forth as the roster of states with Senate elections rotates in two-year cycles, that Republicans will continue to hold the House mainly on account of the way congressional boundaries are drawn, and that the country's changing demographics give an edge to the Democrats in presidential elections. Oh, and nothing useful is likely to get done.
Since we already should have known all that, the gesticulating isn't warranted.
