Post Mortem Why Republicans got shellacked in the midterms

the weekly standard ^ | 11/08/2006 9:00:00 AM | Fred Barnes

[flixxx]

THIS ONE IS PRETTY EASY TO EXPLAIN. Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq, corruption, and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them. Of these, the war was by far the biggest factor. Unpopular wars trump good economies and everything else. President Truman learned this in 1952, as did President Johnson in 1968. Now, it was President Bush's turn, and since his name wasn't on the ballot, his party took the hit.

[kabar]

Not directly -- but when you think about it, they are (in the form of an artificially stunted standard of living).

Not at all no matter how you try to rationalize it through Clintonianspeak.

You might be right. On the other hand, there may be an inevitability about this whole thing. I never understood why slavery in some form was the norm in almost every culture in human history, but I'm starting to wonder if this is because the human condition is such that slavery is a "necessity" at some point and a sizeable middle class is the exception, not the norm.

One would hope that the "human condition" is progressing and that slavery is not a "natural" part of it. We don't need an underclass to exploit. History doesn't dictate the future.

[spinestein]

[Hey, I'm ready for a President Hillary. Are you?]

Why do you ask? Do you think that Senator Clinton has a good chance of being nominated by her party? If she is nominated, do you think she has a good chance of making her case to the voting public to get elected President? I sure don't.

A better thing to worry about is what kind of a candidate we should nominate to run against the Democrat who probably will be for bigger government, higher taxes, more welfare and entitlements and pacifism as foreign policy and who also may have enough charisma and likability to charm voters, unlike Mrs. Clinton.

[kenavi]

I'd say that then that there were "many other factors at work" in many races. The biggest factor was Republicans shooting themselves in the foot with ties to corruption or inept campaigns (e.g. George Allen Jr.'s).

[MEGoody]

Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq

Possibly. The majority of Americans seem to be quite gutless.

corruption

Oh, that's a hoot. Sure, there's corruption in the Republican party. But we toss 'em out when we find 'em. The Dems give them positions of power. (Teddy Kennedy comes to mind.)

and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them.

I will agree with this. The leadership we had was pretty spineless. But whose to say if the things they accomplished would have helped anyway. (Privatizing social security comes to mind.)