An Election Pre-Mortem by David Broder

A lot of people were predicting the results of the general election on Tuesday, November 2, and most of them were right about the general results:

The Democrats lost big.
In particular, the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats lost dramatically.
The Republicans did well.
The effects of the Tea Party movement were ambiguous.

David Broder, in his column in the Washington Post, attempted not a prediction, but a pre-mortem. (Or a premature post-mortem - take your pick.)

Broder's key point is that any analysis which concludes that this election spelled "doom for the Democrats and a shift to the right in our politics" will be wrong. He thinks this for several reasons: the size of the shift to Republicans in the House will lead us to exaggerate the extent of their power; the voters are very skeptical about both parties; neither party has a compelling spokesman on economic issues (though Broder mentions that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin "has assumed the role of analyst and provocateur); neither party has compelling spokesmen on the other leading issues of the day, either.

All of these are valid points, and all of them taken together mean that Tuesday's election wasn't nearly so dramatic break with the past as the talking heads, and many Republicans would have us believe. I think John Boehner had it right when he said that this wasn't so much a victory for the Republicans as the public giving them one last chance to get it right. And I think Mitch McConnell was dead wrong when he said that the most important task for the Republicans is to defeat President Obama. That's exactly the kind of thinking that could make the Republicans' gain in power very short-lived.

We live in interesting times, folks.

Are We Nostalgic for 1934?

In general, people may not have a lot of fondness for 1934. It was smack in the middle of the Great Depression, and things were pretty bad. But, as Daniel Gross points out, it was better than in 1930 or 1932, and the economy was growing. So Mr. Roosevelt's party, the Democratic Party, the party of Woodrow Wilson, didn't lose seats in the House and Senate, as conventional wisdom says the president's party must in the off-year. No, the Democrats gained seats, increasing their majorities, and positioning themselves to carry out the "Second New Deal."

Can this happen again? A lot depends upon just exactly how much the numbers move between now and November, but the Republicans should beware of counting their chickens before they are hatched. Of course, it the Republicans are disappointed in the fall, think how unhappy the Tea Party patriots, Fox News, Sarah Palin, and members of various armed militias are going to be!