2010 Election Results

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Gerrymandering will only take the GOP so far.

I think that things today are a lot more politically polarized than they were in the 80s or even the 90s. The Republicans don't seem to me to have any raison d'etre other than opposing Democratic policies. They don't seem to have any plan other than removing government presence in the economy, and I really don't think that degree of government shrinkage will do anything at all to help either the middle or lower socioeconomic classes.

I foresee lots of workers getting screwed over. I am not happy about that.

 

I heard a lot coming from liberals on Newsvine. Which confused me, because I didn't think they had anything to do with this election.

I'm still waiting to see if the New People are any better than the Old. The Republican Party betrayed America when it dropped the Contract with America like a hot potatoe. If you look at it, the Tea Party basically ran on the same stuff. If they live up to it, they'll have won my respect. If they don't, it's just politics as usual.

Incidentally, if they don't, they won't do well in 2012. The US did not give anyone a mandate yesterday. They fired a warning shot across the bow of Those In Power, and I don't think most will care who Those In Power are come 2012.

I'm not so sure about that. 1994 ended up being a good year for the US as a whole. Of course, then we had Clinton and Newt. We'll see if anyone can fill those shoes this time. I'm not holding my breath for Obama and I don't know enough about Boehner.

Actually, as far as the government is concerned, it may be. Bush's bail-out may or may not have been good, and Obama's stimulus is widely considered to have been mostly a failure (the best estimates I saw said only 1/3 of the money is having any impact). At this point, I think the only solution is for businesses to start investing again. Which has little to do with what the government does (except that new regulation, especially uncertain regulation, won't help).

I think what you'll find is that the lunatic fringe is, well, a lunitic fringe, and the People have usually been pretty good at keeping the lunatic fringe (of any group) out of power.

I think that, in fact, people do remember, and will be very gunshy about anyone trying anything. I think this is part of what has fed the anti-Obama frenzy. No one wants to admit that they're having flashbacks of Bush, but Obama's policies resemble a whole lot more power grabs. Not the only thing behind it, of course, but part.

Overall, I think the Onus is on the new Republican majority in the House and the Republican minority in the Senate. We've seen how the Old Republicans handled things, and we didn't like it. We've seen how the New Democrats handled things, and we didn't like that either. The New Republicans have now got a shot, but if things don't go well, I think you'll find they'll loose that shot very quickly. That kind of pressure can force politicians to comprimise and work together. Obama got in by being Not Bush, and campaigning that way. The Republicans have just gotten in by being Not Obama, and campaigning that way. For the politicians who are paying attention, that means the majority of Americans aren't happy with any extreme and are sick of making excuses for their politicians. I think a short fuse, on the side of the general public, could be a very good thing.

After all, when is the last time the moderates marched on Washington (Restore Sanity)?

 

I can agree with that to a point. It's fair criticism, since many of those with executive power seem to have this problem to a greater or lesser extent, and Obama has not been any exception. But GWB [The self-proclaimed "Decider"] was certainly one of the worst in that respects.

 

Well, the sad truth is that the current recession dates to early 2007. It's been on us for nearly four years now. (Technically, the official "recession" only lasted 13 months, but if you count from the start of the housing crash which caused the bottom of the stock market to fall out until now, when the economy is still far from "good", it's four years.) Like it or not, Bush couldn't fix it in the last two years of his presidency, and Obama has not been able to get the economy going, and he has nearly two years on the job as well.

NOG, the "old" Republicans largely got voted out in 2006 and 2008. Many of the Democrats were defeated by the exact same candidate they defeated to get the job just two years ago. In many cases, the "old" Republican is the exact same freakin' guy as the "new" Republican. The Tea Party is a "new" group that closely affiliates with the Republican party, but I certainly wouldn't identify them as the "new" Republican party. There just aren't enough of them. If you count up all the elected Tea Partiers in the House, Senate, Governorships and Lt. Governorships there really aren't that many. What, maybe two dozen total? Out of around 600 people?

 

I'm curious, were there any actual surprised this election? It seemed to go pretty much as suspected.

 

I was reading somewhere the biggest swing vote in the past two elections was the AARP crowd. It's a fickle group.

I also believe there were many disillusioned by "change" -- we voted in Obama and voted out many republicans because we (as a country, not individuals) were looking for "change." In reality that change was simply the candidate least like Bush and candidates who didn't like Bush either. What we got though was basically a White House that put in Washington insiders. Both the House and Senate seemed ineffectual; there was constant in-fighting among democrats. In essence we saw very little real "change" and basically no reform to how the government does business.

So now the pendulum swings back, just as it always does, and we'll get to see how ineffective the current group is. It's a never ending cycle.

 

Not particularly. There were some minor upsets where a candidate we thought would win by a few percentage points lost, but no major upsets. There were a few other contests that we thought would be close turned out to be not so close, but the nation as a whole went pretty much as expected. Pretty much everyone expected the Republicans to take over the House, and they did so by a few more seats than most were predicting. Pretty much everyone expected the Democrats to lose seats, but remain in control of the Senate - and that prediction was spot on.

 

Chandos mentioned infighting amongst the Democrats. I want to weigh in on that concept. The Tea Party notwithstanding, one thing that the Republicans seem very good at doing is sticking together. They present a semi-unified front, and this allows them to bulldoze the Democrats, who sometimes tend to dither.

Things are so polarized -- Obama is willing to work together and make some concessions, but it seems that the Republicans (and Tea Party types) have no interest in reasoned debate, give and take, or otherwise working together for the common good. It saddens me. Maybe I'm wrong -- maybe when the cameras are off they start acting like adults rather than schoolyard bullies. I hope that's the case.

I am deeply disillusioned with my conservative brethren at this time.

 

No, LKD - you pretty much nailed it.

 

Yep - half-way and it stopped at the Senate. That of course set McConnell's Senate agenda:

I guess he is pissed-off, since he counted on becoming Senate majority leader and the "pedulum" just ran out of gas a bit short for him. No wonder he's pissed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40007802/ns/politics-decision_2010/

So now we have divided power. That will be interesting.

 

I'm quite sure the Senate would have fallen to the Reps in massive numbers if it had all been up for re-election, like the House was. Of course, I think that's the point of the Senate terms being what they are: that a whim or urge of voters can't restructure the entire power structure of the US.

Overall, I think divided power is usually the best, as it forces the two parties to work together and come to the middle.

As for how things will go: repealing Obamacare will be a big priority for the Reps, and some of the Dems. It won't be a good idea unless they can replace it with something better, preferably in the same bill. I think it's a good goal, but it's risky.

Making sure Obama is a 1-term president will be best served by showing the Republicans can actually handle governing. In short, the best way they can make sure Obama doesn't win again is by doing a good job on everything else. I home someone realizes this.

 

Based on what information?

Well, can you explain how the Dems did it in 2006 then? They took both the house and the senate....

So much for the notion of "divided power."

More than likely it will depend on the job Obama does, rather than the nitwits in Congress.

 

NOG, in an ideal world that would be true, but you are assuming that both parties want to accomplish something (as in, do things that will benefit the populace of the nation.) In this particular instance, the Reps don't seem to be really interested in doing much for the people -- they merely want to bring Obama down. They are seeing this not as an opportunity to have some say in the nation's policies, balanced by the President and the teensy Dem majority in the Senate, but rather to continue on confrontationally, not bending, not talking, not meeting in the middle, not being reasonable, not giving an inch. It would appear that their main tactic in the Senate is going to be the filibuster.

What a disgrace. To me, that's not good governance, or even maturity. They should work together and find a middle ground -- Obama really hoped that if he extended some olive branches people would be reasonable, but all they do is take and then take some more. The lack of willinginess to dialogue, reason, compromise, and do what's best for the nation being displayed by the GOP at the current time makes me genuinely fearful.

 

This is fantasy land and it's not going to happen. First of all, Republicans can't handle governing. They proved that in the Bush years when they had total control for 6 years and showed no fiscal restraint or willingness to compromise whatsoever. Second, even if they could handle governing, they have no interest in doing it – this is the party that so often repeats (with no regard for the context in which it was said) Ronald Reagan's "Government isn't the solution to our problems; government IS the problem." They don't want to govern, they want to rule.

No, the goal of 1-terming Obama is best served by doing what they did the last 2 years - obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Even if they do manage to somehow agree to do what they were elected for and tackle the problems we face by working towards and proposing sensible, passable legislation (aka, governing), doing so will only make Obama look good. Them, too - but to a lesser extend than it will benefit Obama. Even if Obama's championing policies that they would privately admit are good ideas or necessary measures (like the GM bailouts, for example), they will treat it like the ultimate betrayal and vote lockstep against it because it's what he wants. Again - why change a winning, consequence-free gameplan? They will follow this up by proposing partisan legislation they know he will have to veto just to make him look unreasonable. All they have to do is sit back and as people look to them for why our problems are getting worse, throw up their hands and say "the President sets the agenda. Don't look at us." They won back the house a mere 3 days ago and they're ALREADY doing this.

This isn't how Republicans always were or how they always will be...but it is how they are now.

 

I'm not at all sure this is true, but if it turns out that it is, I expect heavy GOP losses in 2012.

See, this is what I disagree with. If they actually do this, then the obstructionist label will stick, and people in 2012 will say 'We never really gave Obama a chance.' The GOP will be slaughtered and the Dems will stand to make significant gains, as well as re-electing Obama. The only way the GOP could obstruct and not see this is if it's truely ludicrous liberal leftist policies by the Dems that are being obstructed. Then both parties will look bad and who knows what'll happen.

Again, I don't think that's actually true. It may be how Boenher is, but I don't think it's true at large. Again, looking at the past 2 years, the Reps haven't obstructed everything. They haven't turned Congress into quicksand. They've blocked a few major things that everyone knew they would (Cap and Trade, Immigration Amnesty, raising taxes) and let the regular, run of the mill stuff pass. They even comprimised well with the Dems on some of them. It's just that these things don't make the news.

 

I don't think that's very likely. It might be true, but there's also the competing narrative " Obama didn't do anything." It's a matter of who can make their narrative believed more, and I don't think the Democrats have been very good at doing that for the last few years. Obama is already suffering from the dissatisfaction about the economic crisis, and that wasn't his fault, either. He didn't quite get his way on healthcare, or many other issues. I don't think the "Give Obama a Chance" moto would be good for Democrats in 2012, to be honest.

 

Were you asleep the last two years? NOG, this is...exactly what they did. Not kind of, exactly. They painted everything Obama tried to pass as ludicrous leftist policy. Everything. The only reason anything got passed at all is because they forced the Dems to water down their bills enough so that 2 or 3 Republicans would get on board in order to break a filibuster. And the Republicans just made the biggest seat gain in the house in a generation. Did 2 straight years of naked, deliberate obstructionism earn them the obstructionist label? Among liberals, sure - but who cares what they think. But to conservatives, they were bravely halting the march of socialism. Or something.

In what decade did these magical, run-of-the-mill 2 years occur? Again, have you been that out of touch the last two years? Without straining every session to eek out a filibuster-proof majority, the Democrats couldn't get anything passed. That's the only thing that prevented the last 2 years from being total quicksand. As undisciplined as the Democrats are, last term's split was, for all intents and purposes, a 41 to 59 majority for the Republicans. Now it's 48 to 52. Preventing a filibuster is now utterly impossible.

 

Another fact to consider is that there are a lot more Democrat Senate seats (21) in play in 2012 than Republican seats (10), if memory serves. After seeing their colleagues fall on their swords for their health care votes this election cycle, how willing will the Democrats in the Senate be to keep advancing the President's agenda?

 

Ah, someone who knows the agenda for the next two years. Good. I've already received several emails asking, "What's next?" Some of us were wondering what he [The prez] was doing next. Care to kindly fill me in, since you obviously already know?

 

While NOG and I rarely agree, we do on this particular point. Nationally, the Republicans won by nearly 7 points. Granted, there's a lot of variation from state to state, but a lot of states that voted out some of those 65 Democratic Congressmen (like Virignia, for example) didn't have a Senatorial race. Seven points is an arse-load. Had the entire Senate been up for re-election, it is not only likely that the Dems would have lost their majority, it is quite likely they would have lost it convincingly.

The answer is quite obvious - the Republican majority at the 2006 elections was much smaller than the Democratic majority at the 2010 elections. In fact, the Republicans never had 59 Senators at any point in Bush's 8 years in office.