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Midterm Elections Roundup

On the heels of the Democrats’ sweep back into power, the pr machines on both sides have immediately leaped into cycle after cycle of relentless spin, a task they were surely long prepared for, regardless of outcome. And so we’re all able to find our comfort-zone with the results, be it with Fox News, conservative columnists like Charles Krauthammer, or Karl Rove himself telling us there’s no larger meaning to glean; that uncontrollable (if foolishly exasperated) historical trends have merely masked, not derailed, America’s strident Conservative Turn; that we’re likely to see a broad return to power for the Republicans in 2008… or be it with The Dailey Show, liberal columnists like Paul Krugman, or Slate and The New Republic telling us that Rove’s politics of Party Base Extremism worked for a while but have now been thoroughly discredited; that the Republicans have completely alienated the political Center and now risk becoming a regional party, localized solely in the Deep South; that though it may not yet necessarily mark the emergence of a new political era, it certainly marks the end of one. And believe me, they all have plenty of numbers corroborating their version of the story. Is one right, or the other wrong?

One of the oldest term-paper tricks in the book is to cite sources presenting perspective X, then sources presenting competing perspective Y, and then declare shortcomings in both as you present your own more rational, dispassionate analysis concluding that “the reality is somewhere in-between”, something more like X/Y. Most academic texts will use some form of this in the literature review section for the simple reason that it’s always correct, or at least always defensible. So the self-styled “balanced” commentators are finding all sorts of variations of middle ground to stake out, picking parts of each side to agree with, and why not? The Center’s back in the ascendant; it’s cool to be moderate again.

Of course, there are no truisms in politics, nothing unequivocally correct. Still, I think it about right to suggest that as a country we’ll look back at these years as a unique period in our history, and frankly, one that carried us in rather predictable directions in the wake of September Eleventh. I remember my first thought upon taking the full measure of that day’s events was that an immediate counter-balancing wave of conservatism was inevitable, a common reaction to such national traumas, and that it could last a decade or more. It is, to a large degree, to the Republican’s discredit that they could not sustain the wave longer than they did. Karl Rove will undoubtedly be remembered a masterful wizard of electoral politics whose vision and instincts shredded a stack of conventional wisdoms, but his era created him as much as he created his era. To use the old phrase, if Karl Rove had not existed, he would have been invented. Given a social period of sudden insecurity, it should hardly be surprising that a practice of politics bent toward those insecurities should win a degree of purchase.

What should be equally unsurprising, then, is its passing. Even in its invincible, romping heyday, the proposition was never entirely convincing. The recent alliance between Western libertarians and Southern fundamentalists was always a marriage of convenience, held together with spit and string, its dissolution inevitable. This was never to be a “permanent majority” for the simple reason that it was a reflection of such singular times. Extremism is naturally unsustainable, only truly influential in extraordinary circumstance. Bush, hand-in-hand with Rove, was only made possible by his times. He was just plain lucky in 2000, with more Americans voting for Al Gore, and became President for no other reason than that Bill Clinton had opportunity to appoint two Supreme Court justices rather than three. Standing within the full artifice of the War On Terror, drums beating, he won in 2004, re-elected by the narrowest margin of any second-term President in US history. September Eleventh dramatically shaped the direction and force of Bush’s presidency. So why should it be surprising that as the period’s singular circumstance wanes, so should Bush’s influence?

I, myself, like the ballyhooed idea that the overreaching extremism of the collapsed September Eleventh Wave may now set the conditions for an emerging third party, the Centrist Party: economically responsible, environmentally realistic, traditional but pragmatic on social issues, which is all to say driven not at all by pre-set ideology, something all political corners are distancing themselves from. More contending parties would be healthy. Needless to say, that’s a far stretch from here.

The idea, though, that Rove has dug the Republicans into a deep well and has isolated the party in the Deep South overstates the tone of last Tuesday’s election. Rove’s wins are overstated, and so are his losses. Republicans will find power again, Democrats will lose power again, Republicans will win the middle states again, Democrats will elect presidents again, and on and on. Politics wear on the viewer much as sports do; there’s only so long you can watch the little ball go back and forth. So we’ve just had a change in the show we’re watching. Which is all I really wanted from these elections, because the last show had gotten almost unwatchable; terrible directing, terrible acting, with incoherent plotlines...

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…One has to wonder how Joe Lieberman’s feeling these days. After a humiliating defeat in his state’s primary election, thrown to the wolves by his home-state Connecticut Democrats as well as the party’s national planners, he ran as an independent and won a convincing victory. Now he returns to the Senate to work with all those colleagues who may or may not have had a hand in the palace coup attempt to unseat him. Lieberman promises to caucus with the Democrats, and most of his Senate party-mates probably had nothing to do with his trials. Still, when your razor-thin majority rests on the loyalty of someone you just stabbed in the back, it bears watching…


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…Legislation has direct effects on everyday life, but it waxes and wanes, one Congress frequently modifying or completely undoing what another has done. The Judiciary, however, casts a longer shadow. It’s extremely hard to reverse trends in the makeup of federal judges; in fact, there’s really only one way to do so: win elections, wait for old judges to retire, and appoint new judges. So there really is no undoing what past administrations have done, consequences all the more magnified at the exclusive top-rung, the US Supreme Court. When Bush replaced Rehnquist with Roberts it was merely a renewal (albeit a 40 year renewal) of a staunch conservative seat, and did not affect the Court’s balance. When Bush replaced O’Connor with Alito, it was a more significant realignment, trading the Court’s swing vote for a solid conservative. If Bush gets another shot, it may well be to replace John Paul Stevens, the court’s oldest justice, and its most liberal.

Judges are cited every election as a vital reason to vote one way or the other, but it remains true that among the most important results for Democrats in retaking the Senate was the Supreme Court safety net that came with it. It’s the Senate, and not the House, that has authority to review Supreme Court nominations. Now, should there be another Bush nominee, it will necessarily be a compromise, which is to say, a moderate, with far less drastic repercussions for the fate of progressive law. With a Republican Senate, we may well have been looking at another Alito replacing Stevens, which would have obliterated the Court’s balance, and sent any number of would-be split-decision votes to clear conservative wins. Roe v Wade, among many other liberal lynchpin rulings, would almost certainly fall. All for 3,000 votes in Montana…