Is America Lurching Left?
Do the election results spell the end of a center-right country?
I have heard many pundits recently saying we are a center-right country. Most of them were speaking in context of yesterday's elections, and most of them now appear ridiculously wrong.
How could their assertions possibly be true? This election was a seismic shift to the Democratic ticket. According to all analysis, the move cut across every demographic, and was independent of region or party. In short, a mass migration to the left.
It is the largest electoral move since the Gingrich revolution in the early 90's, and decidedly opposite in it's direction.
Not only did we overwhelmingly elect a Democratic president, we increased the majority of a Democrat controlled Congress that enjoyed the lowest approval ratings in history. Democrats in both the House and Senate realized gains, although it seems Harry Reid will still have to contend with the filibuster option on the Senate side.
The left also picked up several governorships, and increased their contingent in almost every state house.
So, are we now, as a country, leaning left?
The answer is no. Voters in California, Florida and Arizona all either passed Gay Marriage Bans, or defeated efforts to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions. This fact serves as a cultural bellwether, at least in California and Florida.
Both of these states went to the Democrats, and California vies with Oregon as the most liberal state in the country. The youth vote was huge in both states, and gay marriage was still not able to gain the popular nod.
Voter anger over federal intervention in the business sector, including the recent 700 billion dollar bail-out package, indicates we still don't want Washington in our business.
The uproar over Obama's comments regarding his plan to "spread the wealth", a remark that almost cost him the election, indicates we don't like politicians in our pocketbook, either.
So why the swing? George W. Bush.
This election was nothing more than a referendum on the sitting President. In fact, the parallels between this year, and Jimmy Carter's victory in 1976, are striking.
In both elections, the nation had a choice between a young, inexperienced populist and the party of an unpopular, embattled President who remained shuttered up behind the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Both elections featured an experienced Republican who had trouble finding a message, and a media reluctant to investigate their opponent on any substantive issues.
Both elections were characterized by a groundswell of young, angry voters, and both decisions went to the newcomer, along with gains in congress.
This year, Obama's promise of 'change' was enough to seal the deal. Even an undefined and nebulous sort of change sounded better than "four more years of the same".
Conservatives can blame the defeat suffered in 2008 on a President who refused to communicate his thinking to the country, and refused to engage in any debate on ideology or principals.
Bush surrendered the domestic arena to a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They used every crisis as an opportunity to pin blame on Bush, and he never defended himself or his party.
He never used his veto pen to arrest an out of control spending binge, and he never sounded the alarm over the economic crisis.
Bush and his economic team knew the crisis was coming, and their last two budgets to Congress included strong statements warning of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's impending collapse. While they did plead with Congress to reform the giant lenders, Bush never took to the national pulpit to warn us voters. Had he done so, he would have looked like a genius when it happened, and Republican's could have seized the initiative of change and reform that rightfully belonged to them from the Democrats.
Pelosi and Reid immediately pointed to deregulation as the problem, and a useless national media joined in the ploy. Talking heads populated the airwaves, discussing the evils of deregulation, when the real problem was a failure of congress and federal agencies like the SEC to exercise the expansive regulatory powers they had, and still have.
When "two more years of the same" should have been a nationwide Republican attack ad, congressional candidates were instead scrambling to hide their party affiliation with an invisible president who rivaled Nixon in his fortress mentality.
This failure to preside cost the Republicans the election, and will probably result in a larger, more intrusive federal government who feels a mandate to reach deeper into our wallets.
As Joe Biden said, we will all be forced to "be part of the deal", like it or not.
Liberals now have two years to compile a record that will be judged strictly to their account, and conservatives have the same two years to tailor their message of smaller government and traditional values to a younger electorate.
Republicans must also find a way to bypass a hostile, liberal media in order to broadcast that message, or the party will whither on the vine. That can only be done by direct communication to their constituents, and that means packing up every weekend, leaving Washington, and hitting the stump in their home districts.
Obama ran as a centrist, disavowing any connection with extreme members of his party, and promising tax cuts to the middle class. His promise is to be a pragmatic and communicative leader. How he responds to the wild-eyed liberalism of Pelosi-Reid will be key to his success or failure.
How will he meld a centrist pragmatism, when he has an 800 million dollar election debt to members of the hard left? He will have a swooning media to assist him, and we can expect an instructive display of how the Presidential bully pulpit really works.
It should be an interesting two years.