Monday, November 15, 2010
Post-Election Musings
I haven't posted much in the last couple months, and I would love to tell you that I was hard at work on election campaigns, but that depends on your perspective. I did a little sign-waving and wrote some checks to candidates, but that's about all I could do in terms of "traditional" campaigning as the mother of as small child that needs a lot of my personal attention (and rightfully so). What I also did is talk to my co-workers and some friends (that aren't already conservative) about how they were voting and why (and how I could change their minds if need be). I found that while most of them were willing (and did) vote to repeal recent tax hikes and reject new ones, they also voted for the same elected officials (all Democrats) that gave them those tax hikes and supported new levels of taxation! I am still trying to understand why this happens. Why vote for someone today that you are going to have to overrule tomorrow? This will require some more thought and (I hope) it will lead to some interesting discussions.
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I was wondering where you were hiding! :)
ReplyDeleteI think that although there was a large backlash against incumbents, ultimately each voter makes a choice between 2 possible candidates. Maybe they didn't like the voting record of their incumbent on the whole, but then they looked at the challenger and were afraid of making a change. There are examples of this around the country where "moderate" Republicans lost their primaries to more conservative (tea party? I hate that moniker) challengers, who then lost to Democrats in the election. It seems to me that some Republicans were going farther to the right than voters were ready for.
The general consensus I've read is that Democratic voters didn't turn out much (some were unhappy with how not-liberal Obama was) and independents went back to Republican candidates. Of course, Republican turnout was very high as well. It will be interesting to see if Republicans maintain their momentum or if independent voters change their minds again in 2012.
Nice to hear from you again, Andrew! And I thought I was just writing this for my own mental health again. :>
ReplyDeleteA backlash against incumbents? Okay, if you want to frame it that way, who were the incumbents that lost? Democrats! They had ironclad control of both houses, and Republicans won more than 60 of their seats. That math also means that Republicans (the relative few that were in Congress) held their seats. So aren't we really talking about a backlash against Democrat incumbents?
Sure, there were some races where the more conservative candidate won the primary and then lost the general. However, I don't think that was a reflection on their conservative principles---they just had too many flaws that the base was willing to overlook, but not the general electorate. O'Donnell was just a strange lady, for example. And she was running in Deleware---usually a pretty blue state. However, Chris Christie in NJ shows that you can be conservative and win in a blue state if you are an outstanding candidate (and if voters recognize that liberal policies have put your state in deep economic doo doo). People have expressed that the actions Obama and Congress have taken over the last 18 months were not what they voted for in 2008. Independents that voted for Obama are horrified by things like the health care bill and the spending that dwarfs Bush's spending, and you are right, very liberal voters are mad that Guantanamo is still open and Bush/Cheney aren't in jail.
It will be interesting to see what will happen in 2012, and you know I'll be glued to politics until then! It's just too early to know---lots will happen between now and then!