Justus For All

First off, big congratulations to the Democrats.  A clear election victory by any standards, with a solid majority in the House and possible control of the Senate.

Why this happened and what it will mean will spawn thousands of blog posts today.  I don’t know that I have any particularly earth shattering insights here, but that has never stopped anyone, least of all me, from blogging about a subject.

I would say that the biggest reason for this change, eclipsing the issues of Iraq and ‘culture of corruption charges’ is probably change for changes sake.  The American people tend to like to shake things up from time to time, and the past 6 years of Republican domination is really the aberration in that regard.  The American electorate also tends to like divided government (I generally agree on this myself) and when you can get change and divided government at the same time, that is a pretty likely thing to happen.

The other specific issues matter as well, but I think it is the meta-issue of time for a change that is the real factor here.  Republicans shouldn’t lose heart though, they really didn’t do that bad for a sixth year midterm, and the losses are well within historical norms.

That said though, if there is any single issue that animated this, it is certainly the war in Iraq.  While I remain confident that we are making progress in the long, slow and always difficult task of dealing with an insurgency, it seems pretty clear that the American people want something different done.  I, and I think a lot of Republicans, am willing to listen to other ideas.  So far, other than the ‘redeployment’ option, all of the ideas I have heard from Democrats have been problematic to say the least, and while ‘redeployment’ would be easy to accomplish I am convinced the results would be disastrous.  Now that the Democrats can set the agenda though, perhaps we will see some more serious options being discussed.  That would be a very welcome development.

The other issue that animated a lot of the public is the ‘culture of corruption’ meme.  I have never been sold on this myself, not that politicians are not corrupt, I certainly agree that that happens, but that Republicans have been especially corrupt.  I do think though that this presents a danger for Democrats in the future.  Corruption is enough of a bipartisan phenomenon that the frame can easily shift here, evaporating yesterdays gains in future elections quite quickly.

A third issue, that I think relates to both of the two above, and also resonates with the divided government meta-theme is greater oversight by Congress of what the executive Branch is doing.  I am on board with this issue as well.  While I haven’t had any huge issues with what Bush had done, I have not been happy about the way he has done it, in particular dealing with the issue of unlawful combatant detainees.  The Republican leadership of the House and Senate, basically punted their responsibilities on this issue to the President (undoubtedly with his encouragement) for a long time.  I think the electorate didn’t like that too much, and that played into yesterdays vote.

One thing that I think is interesting, and a few people are starting to talk about, is that while it was a clear victory for Democrats, it was a far less clear victory for Liberals.  Moderate or even conservative Democrats made most of the Democratic pick-ups.  Additionally, Lieberman won over the far more liberal Lamont in Connecticut, handing a defeat to progressive activist Democrats.  On the other hand, the leadership of the House will be far, far more liberal than it has been.  If Pelosi and company are not careful, they could do some pretty serious damage to their coalition.  If they are careful, they could also do some pretty serious damage to their coalition.  The good news for Democrats that they have a conservative wing again (which is necessary to win elections) is that bad news that it will be that much harder to satisfy everyone.  I certainly don’t envy them that task.

It seems pretty clear that not a lot will get done in Washington over the next two years.  Divided Government will prevent action on most of the big issues.  I suspect even on Iraq very little change to current policy will happen, perhaps some refinements but not a major alteration in direction.  One issue that may move forward is immigration reform.  An amnesty program has a much better chance of making it now than it did before.  The tax cuts won’t be extended, but they won’t be repealed either and that whole thing will be on the back burner.

It of course wouldn’t be an American election if we didn’t look at what this means for the next one.  Obviously in 2008 Democrats will have a quite a few vulnerable seats to defend in the House.  I expect that their majority will be trimmed, if not eliminated next election.  My guess is that this election will also weld the somewhat fracturing wings of the Republican party back together.  Clearly it is still a 50-50 nation, and last nights results are probably a positive for Republicans winning the Presidency in 2008.  Mitt Romney is probably the biggest Republican beneficiary of last nights results.  John McCain and Rudi Giuliani remain quite viable as well.

For the Democrat 2008 hopefuls it is somewhat of a mixed bag.  I think Barak Obama probably benefited by Harold Ford Jr. and Michael Steele both failing to win seats, keeping him as the sole black senator and the extra press that will bring.  Still, I think 2008 will be too soon for him to make a serious run.  In many ways, Hillary is an obvious beneficiary.  As I pointed out, Conservative Democrats were the big winners last night, and that restores the Bill Clinton ‘third way’ vision.   Still, the results also could prove quite problematic for her candidacy.  With Nancy Pelosi getting a lot of attention as the first woman Speaker of the House, mistakes by her could translate into a reluctance by the electorate to embrace a female President, and I think Pelosi is very capable of making some big mistakes.  Also, if the failures to satisfy the progressive dreams cannot be framed as the Republicans fault, the Democratic primary in 2008 may be extremely tough for a centrist (it won’t be a cakewalk in any event.)  The Lieberman-Lamont race might chasten the progressive activists, but I would bet on the opposite happening and their failures validating them.  The Democrats in 2008 will probably also have much less of a ‘time for change’ tailwind propelling them as a result of this election.

Personally, I am quite satisfied with yesterday’s results, with the caveat that I would prefer we knew what the final Senate count would be without having to wait for recounts.  I think the American people have chosen pretty wisely.