November 5, 2014

Election Fallout Part 1: Obama

President "I Won" (circa 2008) will not be able to bring himself to face the fact that in two midterms in a row he has lost, and done so in record numbers.  He's an ideologue with a progressive agenda.  He will say in his speech today that he'll move to the center and that he'll compromise, but he won't actually do it.  He will use executive actions and his veto power to thwart the results of the election because let's face it, for Democratic politicians, elections don't matter.

From everything like changing the rules for reconciliation and filibustering, to the Cornhusker kickback to the Louisiana Purchase (the Obamacare version) to voting in a lame duck session prior to Scott Brown's swearing in to the senate to vote against Obamacare, politics come before governance.  The evidence is in.

But president Obama cannot say that this has been an anti-incumbency election.  He himself said that his policies were on the ballot.  He's also said that elections have consequences. A & B inevitably mean C - the results of this election were a consequence of his policies.

He can't blame it on an ill-informed or jaded electorate.  Voters saw more advertising in this cycle than most expected.  And the Democrats had a vaunted Get Out The Vote machine they deployed to help them win.  Without that who knows how badly the Democrats would have been beaten.

HE can\t blame it on electoral math.  True the Democrats had to defend red states.  But the Democrats previously had won in those states.  HE lost it for them in those cases by driving Democrat-friendly voters away.  In addition, Republicans won governorships in 3 blue states.  The excuse just won't fly.

But it won't matter to him.  He has an agenda and it comes first.  I expect in private that the president was livid over the results.  And I suspect to see that seething anger in his actions going forward, despite the conciliatory tone he is likely to strike in minutes from now.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Disagreement is always welcome. Please remain civil. Vulgar or disrespectful comments towards anyone will be removed.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Share This