Last night I was sick, particularly over Feingold.
Now that the dust has settled, some thoughts:
- The genius of the constitution is that the House can go wacko for two years. The senate didn't go wacko,moves that would take six years to correct. Of the worst of the worlst, only Rand Paul won. I can't honestly say he is worse than who he replaces. Crazy wrong vs Mean Senile. You choose. I can't.
In the meantime, O'Donnell lost - no surprise. Angel lost, sigh of relief. Buck lost. Bigger sigh. Johnson seems bad. Toomey is Club for Growth bad, not Tea Party bad. I'm splitting hairs, but we were almost studk with him six years ago and I think we'd have been stuck with him if Arlen had been the candidate.
Paul can mess this up if he acts on his personal opinions and attempts to filibuster the debt ceiling and stuff. But the senate is set to curb the house. That is our system.
- Obama's weakness is as titular party head. This was my biggest worry in 2008. The party was revived by the Dean 50-state press. By picking Cain, Obama returned to the failed rope-a-dope containment. Cain has to go. I'd replace him with Dean, and no I'm not a Deaniac. He was the best party chair of my lifetime, though. The fact that Thune wasn't challenged is indicative of things. The fact that the FL party has been so complacent for the last three cycles runnign for the state legislative races should have been addressed.
- As a Floridian, I am hopeful butg skeptical about the admendments and redistricting. It would have been nice to have a Dem governor to help enforce the admendments on the lege.
That said, we are in better shape than we were following the 2000 sensus. I remember Macca in 2002 saying we did well because we won governor's races and they make a greater difference in the prez race. He's a fool, and if he was right, This was the situation: NY still had a Republican. It has a dem now. CA had a Dem who got recalled by the same flimy little ex car thief as will not have the oversight role in the House against the Admin. TX was GOP and is now. FL was GOP and is now. OH was GOP and will be in January. We lost PA. That hurts. We could still lose IL. That will hurt.
It really hurts that we weren't able to take FL. Really. Really.
But we aren't significantly worse off in terms of governors going into 2012 than we were in 2004. And many of us, at the risk of being banned as conspiricy theoriests, believe we really won 2004.
- A bad candidate who can win a primary can also win a general. Rick Scott is a bad man and he is now Gov. Bad Man. Those who believed he would be easier to beat tha McCollum were wrong.
Used to be a billionaire could win the nom but tended to lose the general. The ad arms race probably had as much as anyhing to do with Scott winning. Sink's ads weren't great, and she didn't have the budget to retool the less effective of her two main ads for the final stretch. That's my gut, nothing else.
- Obama should not follow Clinton's playbook post 1994. Clinton campaigned as a new dem, as a quasi-republican, as a triangulator. Obama campaigned as a progressive who could engage collegially with his opposition and produce something. He tried to do this. To a lot of us, he seemed to start out from a position of compromise or capitulation. I dont' blame him for this, but I do kind of wish it had worked better.
What he should do is worry more about the short term than he did. It is a legitimate criticism that his biggest legislation would show few concrete results until well in the future in electoral terms.
It might be smart to work with Boener because it's necessary, but ignore McConnel because working with him isn't necessary. Make inroads with the freshmen in both houses, both parties. Find de facto senate leaders and engage them. Lisa Murkowski might be a good starting point.
- I'm not smart enough to know what other things to do with a lame duck session, but the one thing I'd make sure I did was pass a tax bill. Keep it simple. All of the crap in the Bush bill were the things that made it so bad. Set a rate schedule that is higher than simply renewing the Bush bill but lower than anyone would otherwise expect. And pass it. Say 38 percent as the top rate, and maybe raise its kick in. Do not leave to the next Congress the tax rates after they expired. They wouldn't be horrible. The rates were hardly Ike-era bad. But not doing so would be bad politics, and would leave us fulnerable to whatever crap gets dreamed up.
- Similar note. We need to take Bush off the table. He is simply an ex-president, and the more we learn about his Admin, the more we learn he got lied to, he had to be dragged into Iraq, he wanted to dump Cheney, that kind of stuff. It might all be hooey. But Americans like ex-presidents. Save the invective for Cheney, particularly since he still choose to open his mouth.
Similarly, Boehner needs to be pressed, as O'Donnell mentioend on MSNBC last night, on following Pelosi's lead in taking Impeachmentoff the table. If Isa acts like a prick, we need to ack lik a kick in the groin. If not, well, it won't be easy, but this is the system we have.
- Oh, one more thing. I've heard said the last time this seismic a party shift happened ws in 1938. Does anyone remember 1939-1940 as this big Republican revival? Didn't think so.