Thoughts on the Elections

Okay, two years ago, I had advice mostly for the Democrats. This time, my advice is going to be mostly for the Republicans.



The Republicans played way too hard to the wrong part of their base for the last two years, and ignored the more important part. The christian groups rewarded them for their effort, but as is plain to see now, the christian groups aren't enough. Furthermore, the christian groups, the republicans are pretty much going to get no matter what. The reasons that they vote are pretty much anathema to the Democrats. At most they might stay home. But by playing so hard to them, they got maybe a couple percent higher turnout and participation - at the cost of losing ten percent or more of some groups that are much larger in the aggregate directly to the democrats. Small government conservatives and small l libertarians have voted very strongly Republican in the last several elections. After the prescription drug benefit on top of the very necessary war related and homeland security expenses mandated by reality after 9/11, small government conservatives were looking for Democrats to support just on the theory that a divided government slows the growth in the federal budget. I happen to think they're wrong, but they had significant reasons to believe so. Furthermore, the prescription drug benefit didn't buy you much with the older voters who are concerned about social security. It is necessary to reform social security, and now, in order to save it for the long term, but those voters who are worried about cuts to present day benefits aren't going to be swayed by drug benefits, and those drug benefits were a major chink in your armor with small government voters.



I fully realize that political parties are creatures of privilege, nonetheless you have a situation where necessary government programs of surveillance for the War on Terror created significant anxiety among the libertarian minded voters. Now the hardcore Libertarians wouldn't vote for you anyway, but they vote Libertarian, not Democrat, essentially taking them out of the political equation. However, those who trend libertarian and vote based upon economic issues have tended in the past to vote very heavily Republican. You did a poor job explaining the reasons for the surveillance and the safeguards on it. Yes, I realize that the national media, being Democratic partisans, did their best to confuse the issue, but the means exists to get your message out. Just a simple factually complete email to a dozen of the largest bloggers on the right and center would have done more than all the press conferences and hostile questioning you went through with a hostile media. Furthermore, you could and should have made it a plain policy of enforcement that nobody was immune to these programs. If calls to the White House are subject to the same criteria for monitoring as calls to Achmed the immigrant cab driver, and everyone in between, that says they you consider it important enough that nobody is immune, which goes a long way towards showing how essential these programs are. You didn't do this, thereby exacerbating the perception that caused libertarians to trend a bit less economic libertarian and a bit more civil liberties libertarian, a reaction that always has bad consequences for Republicans. Piled on top of the Terri Schiavo controversy, this caused libertarians to think more civil liberties and less economic.



Finally, the American public has roughly the patience of mayflies. That the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan has been going on so long, and is actually being conducted quite well considering the underlying political realities, cuts no slack with the American people after three and a half years. You've got to explain it to them, constantly. You didn't do that, as a result of which we may have lost the war Tuesday night. If the Democrats consider it a mandate to leave Iraq, we have lost the war, plain and simple, and I strongly doubt we will have another Ronald Reagan to turn it around for us. It's going to take something else as big as 9/11 to get the attention and the support of the American public again, and by that time, it will probably be too late.



Now, just as two years ago I had some advice for the winning Republicans, which included the advice that the Republicans would have a lot more at stake this year than the Democrats, here's some advice for the Democrats. If you look at the Democrats who won, they ran as centrists, not leftists. Calls for the impeachment of President Bush or another go-around of something like Iran Contra will not endear you to the American public. Most of your leaders are leftists, but it's the centrists who won on Election night, and if they don't want to be swept out in their next election, they are going to have to act like centrists, talk like centrists, and most importantly, vote like centrists. The national media, which the Democrats control, pulled out all of the stops in spinning things your direction this cycle. Furthermore, the Republicans were completely inept politically, and it was the sixth year of a Presidency, and the majority who don't understand the War on Terror wanted to register a protest vote, and you benefited from all of that. The Republicans had a lot less going for them in 1994, and in 2004. If this is as good as you can do with everything like that in your favor, you are in no less trouble than you were two years ago. More actually, because now you're going to be held responsible for solutions, instead of merely criticizing the opposition, if not in the media, then at least by the citizens, who are more and more learning to bypass inappropriate filters on the news. Try to run the country hard left, like most of your leaders have been talking until very recently, and you'll be the minority party again in 2008. Stay in the center, and you'll do very well.



Now actually I'm very encouraged by what I see from the actual politicians of both parties in the two days since the election. But the test is not in how they talk prior to taking office; the test is in how they act and vote once they have taken office.



Worthy Articles from here and there

Don Surber on what won and what didn't.

Decision '08 on the death of the conspiracy theories

Coyote Blog: Parties are partisan, so get over it.

Blackfive on Pelosi's quote that Iraq is not a war

Q and O Dems actually have to do something now.

Michael Barone on what Bush is likely to do.

Eject! Eject! Eject! on the way to react to Republican defeat.

Scrappleface on something that would guarantee a Republican sweep in 2008.

Michelle Malkin notes that there are already indications it may happen.

Don Surber New for 2007: Most corrupt Congress ever!