[BigSkyFreeper]

Setting aside the phony scandals against Republican incumbants, the GOP lost simply because they didn't have a central theme from which to rally around to attract discerning votes. It created confusion for those voters. The Democrats rallied around the word "Change", voters wanted change, they got it.

[Hawk1976]

Sort of like trying to court blue collar workers while moving in so much labor as to stagnate their wage scale. They are blue collar, not stupid.

[Luke21]

Rush said almost the same thing as he said after the 1992 Democratic sweep. I thought I had entered a time warp until I heard him make his "liberated" statement.

Rush is trashing McCain. Fair enough. But who is it that he's tired of carrying water for?

We all lost. Most of us voted. I'm really tired of the Bushbots who can't blame their prez for his role in this.

I drove 240 miles across the desert to vote for Bush against McCain in the Arizona primary back in 2000. I had recently moved and was still registered on the other side of the state. I supported Bush everytime he was on the ballot. But I don't have to worship him as a god.

But when the guy lets me down, which has been often, I'm going to express disagreement. I just voted straight Republican again, but for the bots, nothing but silently marching behind the moderates will do.

[CMAC51]

Setting aside the phony scandals against Republican incumbants, the GOP lost simply because they didn't have a central theme from which to rally around to attract discerning votes. It created confusion for those voters. The Democrats rallied around the word "Change", voters wanted change, they got it.

You have it very close. The real reason they did poorly was they let the election be defined as the candidate vs the Bush administration. The Republicans needed to make it about Bush vs. the liberal leadership playing on the fact that even if the Dem candidate was moderate or conservative they would still be the hand puppets of the liberal leadership.

The race was Bush vs. not Bush. It needed to be Bush vs. Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy and Leahy. They let the liberal leadership hide during the last month. Even when Kerry handed them a gift horse, they didn't know how to capitalize on it. They should have dug up every quote by Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, Durbin, Leahy, Biden and Shumer that matched the sentiment. The Republicans, especially the conservatives would have won.

The Republicans ran a pitiful campaign and allowed the Democrats to define the terms of engagement. Sun Tzu will tell you that is the quickest way to lose a war.

[x_plus_one]

Talent lost in missouri because the campaign was a bomb outside of St Louis. The talent campaign didnt open an office in kcmo. The talent campaign was a st louis type operation with distain for western missouri. As long as pubbies are too lazy to meet the dems head on and compete in a political slugfest, the pubbies will not get reelected.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

You've got it. Also, 6 years of hatred from the Dems wore down the moderates who wanted a change from all the vitriol.

Also, if conservatism did not win on Tuesday, can the author of this article tell me which Dem candidates won by running on a liberal agenda? None. The only thing close was the out-of-Iraq demand. Other than that, most Dems who won are fairly conservative compared to the Pelosi wing of the asylum. In fact, did anyone notice how quiet and unseen Pelosi was for the last two or three weeks before the election? Where was the Hollywood crowd and their oh-so-insightful pronouncements on Letterman and the other DNC shills?

I think Rush is right. What happened Tuesday was a cleansing of RINOs. Some conservatives went down because of the left unleashed the dogs of war in their effort to assassinate their characters.

Hatred of mischaracterized candidates or of the "status quo" (which has been fairly to the left) drove most of this election. Not love of liberalism.

[Wuli]

I got the same sentiment from many neighbors here in blue New Jersey. All the Dim ads for Dim individuals were on a national theme (bash Bush) while Kean et al had no over-riding theme to tie their own campaigns to, and help voters identify with them - and how could they, what would they have used: "hold the line on spending", "check the growth of government", "immigration that is secure and not amnesty"????? Yea, right!

[eleni121]

The Republicans have been changing things since they got in...the changes were too much too fast.

Some people wanted change..back to the status quo.

Plus the unions went ballistic this time...

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/11/08/the-union-votes-the-difference/