I suppose that the election returns of Tuesday night could have
been worse for Democrats but it’s hard to see how. Granted, they
grabbed a few governorships, though many fewer than expected. Jeb
is still in the governor’s mansion in Florida. Reformer Mark
Sanford will be chipping away at taxes in South Carolina.
Massachusetts and Maryland are in fairly capable Republican hands.
Even socialist Hawaii has gone GOP.
President Bush’s party picked up seats in the House, triggering
Dick Gephardt’s resignation as minority leader. As for the Senate,
former American Prospect Washington editor Josh
Marshall conceded, “the Democrats lost basically every race
that was even remotely losable.” For the first time since FDR, a
sitting president’s party picked up seats in the midterm
elections.
The nightmare might not be over just yet. The Republicans could
pick up a Louisiana Senate seat in the runoff next month. This race
was grandfathered in under the old campaign finance laws, so
unregulated outside spending will play a big part in determining
the outcome. Seeing as how the Democrats are strapped for cash and
various industries will be looking to get into the Republicans’
good graces, it’s very likely that Mary Landrieu will be toast.
It’s also conceivable that given his shaky relationship with his
party and sensing the shift in political winds — especially in his
home state of Georgia — Zell Miller will jump from the sinking
ship. If so, the spread will be 53 Republicans 46 Democrats and one
lone idiot from Vermont, after an electoral bout that the Dems were
supposed to win.
For the most part the Democratic reaction has consisted of equal
parts denial and sputtering incomprehension. For every frank
admission like Marshall’s (see above) there have been equally
idiotic howlers like this one: “I think these results are actually
bad for President Bush’s reelection prospects in 2004” (also by
Marshall).
Though the shock of losing such a big one short-circuited the
wind-up string attached to the backs of Dem spokesmen
([pull] “Medicare, Medicaid, education and the
environment” [thwack]) a defensive piecemeal consensus is
evolving which holds tactics, poor organization and a lack of
overall message accountable for the staggering losses. As the boys
at
Tapped put it, “the Democrats had no leadership, no message, no
plan. There was just no there there.”
Maybe the Tapped crew could be forgiven this inanity (after all,
they did admit to writing while hung over) but it’s hard
to know what New Republic editor Peter Beinart’s excuse
was. In his weekly TRB column
Beinart took a few fun swipes at Democratic equivocating on the war
on terror before launching into the following:
“Republicans are saying Democrats lost on November 5 because the
voters disliked their proposals on the big questions of the day.
But that can’t be true, because the Democrats didn’t have
proposals on the big questions of the day.”
Balderdash. The Democrats didn’t have a counterpart to the
much-maligned Contract With America, but Beinart’s approach is
disingenuous.
Was there any doubt what the Democrats would have done with
control of Congress? From Tom Daschle to Al Gore, the old instincts
were well displayed for the voters to judge. The Dems collectively
promised to spend more, sock it to business, further involve
government with healthcare, fend off any attempts to privatize
Social Security and resist “irresponsible” tax cuts in the future.
As if to underscore this point, they dragged Fritz Mondale out of
mothballs to attack the Bush tax cut.
But in an election where the residents of Massachusetts —
Massachusetts! — came within inches of killing their own income
tax and plunging the state finances into the toilet; where
residents of Oregon fended off Canadian style healthcare by and
eight to two margin; where Democrats were forced to run away
screaming from the issue of gun control; voters appear to have sent
a message of their own. They saw what the Dems were offering and
decided they weren’t having any.
When Democrats finish grieving their losses in this election,
they should realize that they have been repudiated.
