Fred Barnes: Winners! (And Losers)--2002 Edition

THE ERA WHEN THE PARTY that doesn't hold the White House automatically gains seats in the House and sometimes seats in the Senate as well--is over. Democrats bucked that century-old habit in 1998, winning 5 House seats while Bill Clinton was president. And Republicans, led by President Bush, did it even more decisively in yesterday's congressional election. For the first time ever, the presidential party captured control of the Senate in a midterm election.

There's one particular reason for the death of the off-year trend: House incumbents have safer seats than ever now. When new districts are drawn every 10 years, they're done, first and foremost, with incumbent protection in mind. If an incumbent isn't popular, his new district will be gerrymandered to be especially safe. Should the other party think about reapportioning an incumbent out of a seat, he will join in a back room deal that protects incumbents of both his party and the opposition's. As for senators, they've only occasionally been subject to the midterm election rule. They certainly weren't this year.

So much for history. Let's get to the winners and losers in the 2002 midterm election. The top winner, of course, was President Bush, whose furious campaigning for Senate and House Republicans was a gamble that paid off handsomely. No president has spent so much time stumping for so many candidates of his party in so short a time. Bush emerged as the dominant figure in the campaign, creating a GOP tilt that affected races all over the country. Democrats who won, like Jennifer Granholm in the Michigan governor's race, did so by smaller margins than expected. And vulnerable Republicans such as Rep. Clay Shaw of Florida won by surprisingly large margins.

Another winner: Bush's White House adviser Karl Rove. He guided the president in handpicking Senate candidates in Minnesota and South Dakota and in clearing the field in Texas for John Cornyn to be the Republican Senate candidate. Rove also figured correctly that the best way to keep the House in GOP hands was to forge state-by-state agreements with Democrats to protect their incumbents along with Republican incumbents. He advised Republican leaders accordingly and, since Rove is the president's political guru, they obeyed. It worked.

Winner: Ralph Reed, the Republican chairman of Georgia. He promised not to be outdone by Democrats in turning out his party's voters--and he wasn't outdone. Georgia produced two huge upsets against popular Democratic incumbents, ousting Sen. Max Cleland and Gov. Roy Barnes. You may remember Reed from his former life as the brains behind the Christian Coalition when it was important political group, which it no longer is.

Winner: Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate GOP campaign committee. He's a hands-on chairman who took a few risks. One risky decision was to pump money into Louisiana to back Suze Terrell and attack Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. The goal was to hold Landrieu below 50 percent and force a runoff. It was achieved. Terrell will now face Landrieu in a runoff on December 7. Frist decided where every dime of GOP money would go and even reviewed the scripts of all TV ads.

Winner: Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, Frist's counterpart in the House. Davis is a political junkie who knows more about every House seat than anyone on the planet. And it showed. He recruited an impressive group of Republican candidates, intervening in internal GOP fights when necessary. He also got the president to make appearances for Republican candidates in competitive districts. That's mere House candidates, not Senate. Davis did so well that Republicans won two House seats in Georgia that have been carved out for Democrats.

Loser: The biggest one is Tom Daschle, who loses his post as Senate Majority Leader. Daschle approved the strategy of having Democratic candidates avoid fights with Bush, stay fuzzy on controversial issues, and emphasize attacks on their Republican opponents. The best example of a Democratic candidate who followed this advice was Gov. Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire, seen by columnist Bob Novak as having run a perfect campaign. She lost anyway in her Senate contest against Republican representative John Sununu.

Loser: Bill Clinton. He engineered the nomination of Democrat Carl McCall for governor of New York. McCall ran a disastrous campaign and lost ignominiously to GOP governor George Pataki. Clinton campaigned in Florida for Democrat Bill McBride, but his appearance probably hurt more than it helped. And his mission in Arkansas to put Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jimmie Lou Fisher over the top failed miserably.

Loser: Steve Largent. He was a Republican golden boy, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who was expected to win the governorship of Oklahoma easily after resigning his House seat. And after that, national office beckoned. No more. His campaign fizzled in the home stretch and he lost to Brad Henry, an obscure Democratic state senator.

Loser: The Democratic party. It will now face a period of bitter internecine struggle, liberals versus moderates. Liberals were critical of the strategy of going soft on Bush in the campaign. They preferred to fight on taxes and war with Iraq. Since the strategy of not fighting Bush failed, liberals will now demand the party veer to the left, and moderates will try to block that trend. Meanwhile, Republicans are likely to be even more united behind Bush.

Many other winners could be cited: new senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia; Mitt Romney, the victorious Republican in the Massachusetts governor's race; Mike Murphy, the GOP media consultant whose winning clients included Romney and Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida; and the man who beat the Kennedy clan, new governor Bob Ehrlich of Maryland. Other losers? Let's not overlook Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe, who was responsible for producing a strong turnout, particularly by minorities. He didn't deliver and now will surely lose his job.

Oh I think the desire for old hands is because all of the current neuvo Liberals are shackled with the impression of corruption and deceit.

1. Remember how Clinton came into office. The whole mantra was that it was the Republicans who were corrupt and sellouts to big business.

Clinton-Gore were seen as moderate guys with fresh ideas and spunk. The impression was that Clinton wasnt part of the Beltway game.

They would bring change.

It wasnt so much liberals defeating conservatives as it was moderates falling for the deception....Bush Sr. didnt help by looking like a cakeboy.

2. So Clinton gets into office and after eight years...the reality everyone comes to [especially the liberals] is that Clinton was a total sleaze who lied straight to their face.

3. Now Gore loses the election and the impression isnt that GW stole the election....not among moderates. The impression is that the Democrats are so addicted to power that they will do anything to have it.

In general, people tend to distance themselves from people who are percieved as idolatrous[sp?], addicted or corrupt.

That is the first impression...

Then you have September 11th and to make the story short...

4. You have the second deeper personal impression that Democrats are again so addicted to power that they will actually put the safety of the nation in jeopardy.

You add all that up and it is easy to see why people would be looking for retreads. Anyone that doesnt have the scent of Clintonization.

Then Mondale shows up in Minnesota yucking it up with Clinton at a memorial service....what happened?

Clinton campaigns for different democrats....what happened?

They just dont get it...

Bill Clinton is their problem. He used to be all of ours...but now...he belongs totally to them.

If he continues to stay in the limelight...we will have 9/11 ammo and sleaze ammo for years to come. I pray the bitter extremists within the Democratic party sieze control and McAuliffe stays as the head of the DNC.

Another name to add to your losers' list is Martin Sheen. I got several canned messages from him on my answering machine, promoting California prop 52. Of course, he represented this poisonous measure as a safeguard against voter fraud but it was just the opposite. It would have allowed illegals with phony IDs to register to vote on election day right there at the polling place and then cast votes. I guess the "motor voter" scam isn't enough for the dems. They're forever looking for new ways to corrupt the electoral process.

LINCOLN CHAFEE - who floated the treasonous trial balloon of following Jumpin' Jim's treacherous ways. That trial balloon has blown up like the Hindenburg now that a Republican cushion exist in the Senate and a jump would do no more than put him in the minority.

In a just world, he'd have the second smallest office on the Hill, and an assignment only to the Decoration And Refreshment committee...

That's [Frist not interested in Majority Leader] too bad because Trent Lott is an embarrassment. And I contend that he was at least partially responsible for the GOP losing the majority last time.

A very big part. Reading of his [Lott's] sellout to the D's on the impeachment trial shows his total worthlessness. He agreed to rules guaranteed to show the Republicans as bitter and petty instead of honestly discharging their duty. From that all Republicans looked petty, and the D's gained from what should have been a fatal decision to cling to Clinton. If the 'truth' (as shown in a fair trial setting) would have come out, Clinton wouldn't have been removed from office, but the D's would have been shown as partisan and hypocritical. As it was, he couldn't even convince all of his own party to support the truth - leading to such staunch partisans as Byrd wanting to vote, "guilty, but unproven."

Lott was so afraid to lose power, that he squandered it away.

Very important history making event last night folks. The SOUTH went almost solid Republican. The Democratic party has had a firm grasp on us since forever! Last showed two trends in the South that started appearing with Bushes' election - 1. We ain't gonna take it no mo! and 2. If you ever wanted an example of black flight from the Democratic Party - you have it now. Especially in South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina!

Terry MaCauliffe's main job is to hold the door open for Hillary Clinton's presidential run. He's there to block all the other potential candidates so St. Hillary can position herself advantageously amoung their normally crowded primary field.

Beyond that, I think he may go down for the Global Crossing bankruptcy. The wheels are still grinding on that investigation. He's a dead man walking in more ways than one!

The only salvation at this point for the Democrats is to dump the entire anal left and radically place new faces at its center.

That may happen eventually. But it will take some commanding political personality to do it, and I don't seem anyone like that on the national Democratic horizon. I think they are going to have to go through another cycle before that happens. Right now it seems to be the activist leaders from the "base" ganging up on the more cautious party establishment, not new leaders stepping up - if they go from Gebhart to Pelosi we'll have more perfect symbolism.

My bet is that they are going to tack hard to the left for the next two years, and then, barring major GOP self-destruction, celebrate the anniversary of their '84 drubbing by the Gipper by losing like Mondale in 2004.

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Around the horn with last night's victors and vanquished.