In 1995, following the GOP takeover of the House and Senate in the midterms a year before, five Federal congressmen and one US Senator switched parties from Democrat to Republican. Each had narrowly held onto conservative districts in their state against determined opposition, and had made the decision to switch parties to preserve their seat. All but one of them won it again in the 1996 midterms - and the one who lost was Rep. Greg Laughlin of Texas' 14th District. His primary opponent in 1996 was an actual Republican, albeit a slightly crazy one - Dr. Ron Paul. Laughlin lost the primary to Paul, who went on to win the general election and has held the seat ever since. One of these party switchers, then Rep. Nathan Deal, is now the Governor-elect of Georgia. Each of these politicians had held conservative views on most issues while members of the Democratic Party earlier in their careers, and the districts that they served evidently believed their change of heart to be real - or at least as real as a politician can be.
There's not much of what I consider realistic talk of that this time around. Though the net gain for the Republican Party in the House was of historic proportions, and the gains in Senate were pleasing to say the least, the GOP is not yet magnetic enough to be attracting serious talk of party switching. What allowed the right to prevail in this midterm was the cohesion displayed by the disparate Tea Party organizations, along with the catch-up ball played by mainstream and old-boy Republicans once the writing had been on the wall for the apparently requisite six months or so. Keeping the momentum going by spreading and repeating the messages of fiscal responsibility in an exercise of mass emotional manipulation, and having groups doing this in all segments of the nation, was quite effective. Now, these feelings were and are totally real and mostly justified - after all, the United States currently on a course to be fully owned by China in about three decades. But the way the anger at the absurdity of our federal budget situation was developed, led, and eventually harnessed, was a masterpiece. Kudos to the Tea Party for that act.
However, in truth the best that can be realistically analyzed about this election was that the GOP won over the larger segments of the base and a big slice of the Independents that voted this time. Budget hawks came to the polls driven by the fact that the right kept the controversies and dilemmas of the Obama Administration in the news - much the same way that the mainstream media did this fully automatically during the Bush years. This time around, they had to go off the script, and disable the autopilot, because the narrative was no longer under their control. The result: scandals and retirements, Rick Sanchez axed, Olbermann suspended from the network that literally lives and dies on his ratings, and major media outlets turning out less profit than a lemonade stand in a snowstorm. Of course, in these times the Fox News Channel is booming, but that's truly nothing new since they've been on top for years now.
Democrats in general were not truly magnetized by the GOP. In fact, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 54% of Republican favored analyzing the results as a loss for Democrats rather than as a win for the GOP. The message is clear but shallow - a "D" made one into a target. Being bestowed with an "R" simply made one the lesser of two evils. In fact, across party lines distrust of government is at an all time high, and for good reason. After two years of insufferably patronizing speeches from President Obama, the prospect of continued borrowing and spending under an agenda of "Marx Lite", the GOP base was sick and tired and the liberals had lost their pep. And the net result is an imbalance in the statehouses, with the Republican Party now in control of the legislature and executive of fully 20 states, and a slight imbalance in the House (this was exacerbated by Walker Hines, a State congressman from Louisiana's 95th District, switching parties to the GOP - his departure is most likely due to being the son of a powerful attorney and thus the automatic possessor of political will of the slimiest sort). This being a center-right nation, this may not correct itself right away, but in 2012 or 2014 a correction will come around. So the Democrats took a thumping - but that's all. There was no real switching of base voters, and less conversion of independents than most pundits had predicted.
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| This could happen to either party, is what I'm saying . . . |
Let the pundits talk about Senator Jim Webb possibly crossing the aisle to the GOP side, or Governor-elect Joe Manchin heading the same way. I doubt if either will do it this time around, and I'd be surprised to see more than one or two defections in the House in the coming eighteen months or so. Analysis of the midterms reinforces the strategy for Republicans moving forward: Do not get complacent. A fitting subtitle to that strategy would be: Conservatives - shout if the GOP swerves to the Left, and vote 'em out if they fail to meet our standards of fiscal conservatism. And written in invisible ink under all that would be the closer: Memo to the religious right - please, please, please, let's keep these races about economic and fiscal issues and foreign policy. If the right wants to get sneaky later on about abortion or protections for faith speech, then they'll be smart to let those be the nails that don't stick up.
The winning issues are the wallet issues, and the security issues, and the issues that affect America's measurable standings in the world. Hammering these issues, with tangible results, could make 2012 a legitimate victory for the GOP, and not just a repudiation of socialism.
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