November 06, 2002
Why the GOP won
This is a repost of something I just posted on a discussion forum in response to the following question:
"The result of course is a complete disaster[GOP victory]. Any thoughts as to why it happened?"
Simple. The American people are for taking out Saddam, and the Democrats aren't. The majority in the House voted against the war, and only half the Dems in the Senate voted for it. Also, the Dems blocked the Homeland Security bill because they wanted to put them under the control of the unions. Finally, there were the shenanigans in Minnesota and New Jersey. The Wellstone Wake/Mondale Rally and the New Jersey switcheroo angered a lot of Republicans and independents nationwide, and angry voters tend to make it a point to vote.
The president also took a big gamble by campaigning heavily on his party's behalf--more than Clinton did, and more than Reagan did. It was a gamble, because if the Democrats had knocked off some senate seats and his brother Jeb, his political power would have been seriously weakened.
Going by the numbers, the Republicans should have been trounced. They had more senators at risk, they had more governors at risk, and instead of losing big, they gained. That flies in the face of American electoral history. The Democratic party chairman baldly stated that he would knock Jeb Bush out of office. Instead, Jeb won by 14 points. The first Republican governor won in Georgia since the Reconstruction.
Also, the Democratic party was heavily weakened yesterday. A lot of the seed corn of future Democratic leadership was eaten. The Democratic party is now going to be even more dominated by the left than it was before. This is bad for the long term prospects. A hawkish Democrat like Joe Lieberman now doesn't have a prayer of winning the presidential nomination, and that means that the Democratic party won't be able to win the presidency in '04, and are probably crippled in '08.
Carl McCall was abandoned by the Dems in the New York governor's race. That is going to be bad news when it comes to rallying the black vote in '04(the fact that Powell or Condi Rice could be veep will also be a *very* bad thing for them).
Clinton style politics are now well and truly dead. The attack politics performed by Terry McAuliffe backfired badly. Republicans ran on ideas, the Democrats on personality, and ideas won.
Finally, the question of where the American people stand on war with Iraq, and terrorism in general has been answered loudly. The American people want a muscular foreign policy, they want the President to offer no quarter to terrorists, and now there is no such thing as being too hawkish on the war.
