The Myth of ‘08, Demolished

REALCLEARPOLITICS ^ | 110509 | Charles Krauthammer

[Arc51]

A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

“Against a politically incompetent opponent” - you can say that again!

[An American!]

Here is another great part of the article:
"Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the "rump" rebelled. It's the natural reaction of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election -- and of the mandate it allegedly bestowed -- is the fundamental cause of the Democratic debacle of 2009."

[LoveUSA]

So from now on Obama is “President Fluke”.

[Darkwolf377]

Meanwhile Peggy Noonan’s new column tries so very hard to soften the blow.

[element92]

all this doesn’t help any,
if Republicans continue
to do things that

NOBODY WANTS

.........................
such as,
start open ended commitments to wars,
to help people that are our enemy

[randog]

November '08 was one-shot, one-time, never to be replicated. Nor was November '09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm -- and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.

Actually, if you look at it from a control system point of view, the republicans should overshoot the norm and have substantial gains in '10. The downside is that this "ringing" effect will swing back and forth between r and d until it finally settles into the norm. That is unless there's another transient to spike the system.