WASHINGTON — From the riotous coverage of this election,
starting months ago and ending with the November 7 crescendo, one
might conclude that momentous events are afoot: To the Barricades!
Out with the Old, in with the New!
Actually we have just endured a typical midterm election, when a
president halfway through his second term suffers losses on Capitol
Hill. On average that has meant 31 House seats lost and six Senate
seats poof. Now, once the lawyers have conjured with the
corpus delicti in all the close elections, we shall see that this
is about what happened. Do not let the clang and bang of the media
fool you. When President George W. Bush picked up seats in 2002,
that was the unusual event, not his loss this time around.
We might well ask why the media’s near hysterics? To be sure
there was enormous effort made by both parties, but in the end only
some 40% of the electorate turned out and that was about normal for
a midterm election. Once again the ordinary Americano is more
sensible than the Washington elites. The 60% that does not vote is
usually pretty much satisfied with the way things are. The economy
is sound. No grave issue fevers the Republic, save for one, an
issue that very much fevers the Washington elites. Namely, an Old
Order is passing and fighting desperately to maintain its dominance
in the political culture.
The Democrats’ victories do not signal a liberal recrudescence
in the Republic. Many of the incoming Democrats ran as
conservatives. That is because the conservative drift of the
country continues. As many as two dozen of the newly elected
Democrats ran affirming traditional social values, low taxes, or
other conservative desiderata. In the long term things continue to
look bleak for the Old Order. Bob Casey, the candidate who beat
Senator Rick Santorum, is a social conservative whose father was
barred from the 1992 Democratic convention because of his
opposition to abortion. Jim Webb, who ran against Senator George
Allen, was a Reagan Republican and President Ronald Reagan’s
Secretary of the Navy. In the House newly elected Democrats ran as
advocates of gun owners’ rights and traditional values. One even
signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge against higher taxes
(three Democratic incumbents in the House and one in the Senate
have done the same).
The Old Order and the Angry Left do remain at the top of the
incoming Capitol Hill majority, and they are going to play the role
that we have come to expect from them. They are going to attempt to
raise taxes, spending, and the spectacle of congressional
investigations. The Democrats, once they won the second midterm
election of the Reagan years, entertained us with their Iran-contra
hearings even as the Old Cowboy proceeded to end the Cold War with
the Soviets. Expect nothing less from Madame Nancy Pelosi and the
dirty-mouthed Harry Reid.
There will also be drama from the Republicans and this drama
will be salubrious. Starting perhaps even before this column is off
to the printer, the Republican leadership of the House will be
gone. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert the leaders revealed themselves
to be dull-witted and inept. Their spending spree has offended the
conservative rank and file for years. Hastert’s flat-footed
response to the Mark Foley scandal might well have cost the
Republicans the election, virtually reversing the momentum that was
then going their way. It is time for him to go.
Most likely he will be replaced by one of the young
conservatives from the solidly conservative Republican Study
Committee. Indiana’s Congressman Mike Pence will probably run for
minority leader and Arizona’s John Shadegg will run for whip. Both
are splendid representatives of the New Order, the Order whose
political reforms began with Ronald Reagan, continued through the
Contract With America, and have been responsible for the economic
growth of the past two decades that forced even Bill Clinton to
intone, “The era of big government is over.” Bring on the future, a
future that will not include Pelosi & Reid beyond 2008.
