I’m interested in presidential politics, so I’ve ended up reading a lot of biased articles over the years, Left and Right. Sometimes people on both sides make powerful arguments, sometimes writers are just fighting for their side with truth and logic becoming casualties in the process, and sometimes people are just delusional. I read something recently in the Washington Post online that was–at best–in the second category.
The writer began his article by saying, and I paraphrase here, the one clear message from the 2010 Elections was that voters don’t want President Obama to abandon his goals, they just want him to change his method of operation.
That was the one clear message to that writer? Wow. I think he and I have radically different definitions of what “clear” means.
One could argue, perhaps, that the results are not as much an embracing of Republicans as they are a condemnation of incumbents. But to say that the results show that voters clearly want Obama to continue along the path he has been heading down is just ludicrous.
I know one complaint of Democrats is that Republicans, absent of ideas of their own, have done nothing more than obstruct them for two years, but that wouldn’t explain why the electorate has given the House back to the Republicans, eroded the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, and handed more governorships to the GOP. The Democrats did what they wanted with health care reform, the big stimulus plan, and the auto industry takeover. There has been little Republican push back on Democratic policies regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, or Guantanamo. Democrats need to look in the mirror, and if they see “Let’s keep doing what we’re doing” staring back them, they need a new mirror.
The public’s overriding concern has been the economy. Democrats had two years to either make things markedly better or at least convince the public they had a plan to that effect. I think the one clear message from the elections is that Democrats accomplished neither.
Will Republican fare better? Stay tuned…