Election Results

    There's a ton of stuff to be read that discusses the election and I suppose I could use this post as a jumping off for other takes on the election but I could save a lot of time simply by giving a short synopsis of how the election turned out based upon what other writers' political leanings were.  If you were conservative, the election demonstrates that the people repudiated Democratic policies and felt that Republicans would do a better job of creating jobs, prosperity, and fixing the deficit.  If you were liberal, your explanation of the election results followed along the lines that Democrats lost because the economy was bad in addition to their being a large number of Democrats in Republican territory.  For particularly upset liberals, they would maintain that the American people are stupid and that's why they voted for Republicans.  

    One factor that I think gets completely blown out of proportion is the impact made by the Tea Parties.  A lot of time and energy has been placed detailing this group but as far as I'm concerned no one has ever demonstrated effectively how any of these groups are meaningfully different from the Republican Party as a whole.  Yes, some of the people found at these rallies do identify with the Democratic Party but how many of these individuals have voted for a Democratic candidate at the major level?  There are still a number of people, especially within the South, who register with the Democratic Party but haven't voted that way in major elections for years.  The policies of the Tea Party are in no way different from what the Republican Party has been saying for years.  Lower taxes, smaller government, strong defense, pro-business, and a general affinity for a socially conservative set of laws like school prayer and no gays.  Are there some Tea Partiers that favor a more libertarian style of government?  Yes, just as there are some Republicans who do the same.  Neither group is completely unified in their outlook, but the general coalition of these two groups is essentially the same.  There is no difference between the Tea Party and the Republican Party other than the fact that there are different loci of power.  Different Republicans lead the two groups and there is contention over who should be in control.  I hate the fact that people try to treat them differently, they are no substantive differences between the Tea Party and Republican Party.

    The proliferation of the Tea Parties energized Republican voters while while less Democrat aligned voters turned out.  That was their key contribution to the election of 2010.  I would mention the impact of independents abandoning Democrats but there are no such thing as independents.  While people say they are independent, they lean towards a particular party and a particular set of policy outcomes. 

    Ultimately, I come out saying that people did reject the Democrats, they didn't vote for them so what other conclusion could you draw?  Does this mean that the American people actually support all of the policy positions of the Republican Party?  No, polls have demonstrated that Republicans in congress are in fact less popular than Obama and the Democrats in Congress, a large segment of the population was in favor of a public option during healthcare reform debates and happen to think that the rich should be taxed more heavily.  The elderly happened to vote strongly for the Republican Party because they really liked the socialized medicine they received (Medicare) and were concerned that Obama's efforts to increase medical coverage would diminish their own coverage.  Had the Republican Party officially adopted Paul Ryan's policies on reforming Medicare and Social Security, there would be no way they would have turned out as strongly as they did.  The elderly think nothing should happen to either Medicare or Social Security, which will likely put them at cross purposes with Republicans who happen to favor privatizing Social Security.  Voters punished the Democrats because the economy sucks and they felt that the government should have done something to improve the situation.  Democrats had a hard time pointing to a concrete example of what exactly they did to improve the lives of American voters because the American voters did not agree with any of the examples that could be provided.  Large swaths believe that federal taxes went up, they didn't, that the stimulus and the bailout were the same thing and neither worked, they are different and most economists are generally positive about both, and that health care reform will explode the deficit and result in patient murder.  According to the CBO estimate, Obamacare diminishes the deficit over time and I sincerely doubt that forcing people to buy private insurance that is regulated to offer a standard level of care will result in greater death.  Unless private insurance really is that bad. 

    In addition to the economy sucking and Democrats being unable to demonstrate what they have done for voters recently, there are structural issues that make these kinds of sweeps inevitable.  If there are only two parties, you can only vote for the other guy to punish the first which limits how an election can turn out.  Is this the end of the world?  Are Republicans going to create another conservative majority to last decades?  No, didn't work for the Democrats two years ago why should it be any different now?  I'll post another discussion later about why I think that liberalism is still going strong in America.