Voters are unpredictable beasts (see Greene, Alvin) but,
if Republicans win all of the Senate races that they are thought
likely to win in today’s elections plus my own Washington state, we
will end up with a 50-50 split in the U.S. Senate. Elections are
emotional occasions, so conservatives would be unlikely to say
hooray to that. Maybe they should, for five reasons.
One, the rules of the Senate favor an energized minority
over a bare majority. Senator Mitch McConnell only needs 41 votes
to grind legislation or nominations to a halt and he will now have
those votes. It would be much more difficult for a bare majority of
Republicans to put together a governing coalition given some of the
moderates in the caucus. Conservatives are often frustrated with
those ladies from Maine, for instance, and the GOP would need them
to get to 51.
Two, Democrats will be disorganized. Put aside for a
second the sheer entertainment value of a prospective Senate
Majority Leader having to get the very independent Joe Lieberman’s
blessing and then rely on Vice President Joe Biden to cast the
tie-breaking vote, hard as that may be! This would be a majority in
name only and a significant number of Democrats would want to work
with Republicans with an eye toward re-election in 2012.
Three, with such a divided Senate, the coming conservative
House would be the engine that drives the legislative process.
After the 1994 elections, remember, the fights were often between
the conservative Republican House and the more moderate Republican
Senate, and only then between Congress and President Clinton. That
muddied the message and it kept the balanced budget amendment off
the table. America is still paying for that sin of
omission.
Four, political scientists have found that blame sharing
makes difficult legislation more palatable. True, we can well nigh
guarantee that legislation that makes it through a 50-50 Senate
will not be all that conservatives hope for. But that’s only half
the battle until 2012. President Barack Obama would have a much
harder time vetoing legislation that makes its way through a
nominally Democratic Senate than he would a Republican
one.
Five, Republicans don’t deserve to win. Under George W.
Bush they presided over a federal government whose budget grew from
$2 to $3 trillion annually. They got mired in scandal, launched one
more war than they probably should have, began the bailout binge,
and Osama bin Laden, that icon of the September 11 atrocities,
avoided the grasp of the greatest military superpower the world has
ever known.
Theirs was not a star performance. The only reason things
have turned in the GOP’s favor of late is the even worse
performance of the Democrats. Voters today are poised to express
their displeasure with the Republicans’ opponents. They are not
saying, “All is forgiven.” It would be useful for the next Congress
to have a permanent reminder of that fact.
