« Why TABOR Failed | Main | The Blogger and Columnist Full Employment Act »
November 08, 2006
Why the Loss? - Updated
Safe to say it was a bad night for anyone with an "R" behind his or her name.
So what led to the defeat? Short version - this is a loss for do-nothingism. When the president was re-elected in 2004, Republicans held the House and the Senate. There were a lot of promises made in that campaign - tax reform, Social Security reform, immigration reform...none of it came to pass.
What Republicans got instead was no progress on taxes, a concession on Social Security, nothing on immigration and spending high enough to make Democrats blush. In addition, we got scandal on both sides of the aisle, and Dennis Hastert was stupid enough to defend William Jefferson's right to commit crimes in his taxpayer-funded office. That hurt a lot.
In the Senate, Senator Bill Frist was an abject failure as Majority Leader. He could not pull together a coalition or break filibusters. Again, the base was just horrified at his ineptness.
The Republicans hoped that by keeping a low profile, they could win re-election. That gamble failed. People want a party in power to actually do something. Add in the scandal and that idiot Mark Foley, and you had a prescription for...well, this election's results.
I was hoping for a different result, but let's face it - the GOP earned this loss.
Fair and square.
The bright spot for me this evening? When I voted, my daughter was in the booth with me. Sure, she was grabbing the pen and making it hard to vote, but it was fun.
UPDATE - Hm. Things seem to have gotten worse between when I went to bed and now. Well, it is only politics.
Ace has a good reaction piece up.
National Review-niks try to figure out what happened.
What happened is we lost. We went into a campaign with no ideas and little to show for the past two years, and got our butts handed to us. The president tried too hard to be the nice guy, and has now discovered that the other party has no interest in playing well with others.
The biggest loser in all of this is Karl Rove. Has there ever been a more overhyped political figure? He should have been setting the groundwork for a victory and figuring out ways to get things done, but instead he...well, I have no idea what he did. In the words of Bob Slydell, what is it you do...exactly?
Big winner? Diebold. I guess they've gone from Bushitler McChimpy conspirators to best technology ever in one fell swoop. That will last until the next Republican victory.
Other losers? John McCain and Bill Frist. Might as well shut down those presidential PACS now, because neither of you have a chance.
Posted by slublog at November 8, 2006 09:06 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.slublog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2717