Midterm Mixed Feelings

I was unable to vote in yesterday’s midterm elections because of mixups about voter registration deadlines, but I was still very interested in the outcome of yesterday’s races. Was I disappointed that the Democrats took over control of both houses of Congress? Absolutely. But was I surprised by that? Absolutely not. And, for what it’s worth, here’s my two cents on what went down: The Congressional Republicans deserved to lose. They did absolutely NOTHING in the last 3-4 years on topics such as Social Security reform, virtually nothing on immigration reform, they lacked the courage to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (which have allowed the economy to take off in the last 2-3 years), and then spent like drunken sailors on pork-barrel projects, earmarks, creating a new Medicare entitlement (instead of reforming the whole program, argh), vastly expanding the federal Dept of Education (which should be much smaller or even eliminated — leave it to the states), and other things. And then on top of the massive spending several Congressmen were, shall we say, ethically challenged, if not outright crooks. People like that deserve to get thrown out of office at the ballot box, if not before, and that’s the beauty of the American political system. Good riddance to them.
Basically, what happened last night was a failure of Republicanism, but not a failure of conservatism. The Democrats didn’t win last night’s election, the Republicans lost it. They lost it for many of the reasons I listed above, but also because the Democrats knew that in many districts they could not win if they ran a liberal candidate. As a result, several moderate to conservative Democrats got elected in place of Republicans. Conservatism (defined not as the dictionary definition of not wanting change, but rather as the set of ideals that American conservatism has come to represent in the last 30-40 years or so — mainly centering around limited government, free markets, and the fostering of a culture of personal and fiscal responsibility) generally wins at the ballot box, and I’m convinced that if the Republicans wake up and get back to a 1994-type conservative mindset (especially emphasizing fiscal conservatism), that they will win in 2008. Unfortunately, that’s a big if. And that’s why I definitely consider myself a conservative and not a Republican. It’s better to stay true to a set of ideals than to stick with a party that can constantly change its focus and its character. The plus side about the Democrats controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate? They’ll have a fantastic chance to show the entire country just how loony and bereft of good ideas the MoveOn.org/Daily Kos wing of the Democratic party is, because they’re the ones who will be in control (Pelosi, Kennedy, Waxman, Conyers, Murtha, etc). Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully the Dem win last night won’t lead to cutting and running from Iraq without finishing the job like they forced in Vietnam 30 years ago. We all know how wonderfully that turned out for America…
Also, isn’t it curious how the day after the Democrats win, the mainstream media is silent about potential irregularities with voting machines and counts and whatnot? It’s quite different from the last few elections when Republicans won and the Left and their accomplices in the media threw a tantrum and were screaming about stolen elections and voter fraud, because it’s of course impossible for them to lose fair and square… It seems that the Right has accepted the election results with dignity and a lack of childishness (for the most part), and has decided to be optimistic and turn their attention to 2008. A very different behavior.
Switching topics, Moyer passed along a very interesting story about global warming to me this afternoon. I highly recommend that everyone check it out, because it raises some very good issues.
Well, time to read maybe a little bit more in a journal article or work some more on the first draft of my paper for 580, and then definitely time for bed earlier than usual. I haven’t been getting as much sleep as I should the last few nights, and staying up until 2am to watch election coverage sure didn’t help. Oh well, I’ll live.