Divining Motives and Outcomes

There are a couple of things that I've been mulling over the course of the day. The GOP isn't in as bad shape as some are making things out to be. Sure, things look bleak now, but what exactly were the margins in a dozen of those races they lost. They're a lot closer than one would think when looking at the overall loss:

At a luncheon on the Hill today sponsored by FreedomWorks, Republican pollster Ed Goeas said that the losses we saw last night are average for mid-term elections, particularly mid-term elections in a time of war. He also said, “One of the things that is different from 1994, is that in 1994 when Republicans won 56 House seats, all but a handful were won by a range of 10 or more percent. Last night if you look at the election, of those 28 House seats, 22 were won by 2 percent or less — 22 of the 28. And of those, 18 were won by less than 5,000 votes, and four of those by less than a thousand votes.” Later he went over the numbers again, and concluded, “In other words you can basically go back and say that we lost control of Congress by 11 seats. You’re talking about less than 50,000 votes.”

So many races in the country, and so many decided by a few thousand votes each. Each independent vote has an impact beyond the borders of the district.

That's 50,000 votes out of the millions cast last night. It's the kind of razor thin margin that drives people absolutely insane (2000 and 2004 and now 2006). But here's what the GOP needs to consider going forward. What are they going to do to woo folks like me?

I'm a registered Democrat and I've found their national candidates wanting, their foreign policy laughable, and some of their domestic policies insincere and unserious. I know there are those who read this blog and think that I'm the reddest of red staters, but those folks cannot be more hopelessly wrong.

What policies and stands resonated with voters that will get the GOP back in office. Being against a thing is not the same as a policy. The Democrats will quickly learn this.

Democrats too will learn that razor thin margins carry a burden as well. Governing is not the same as ankle biting.

Let the GOP loss sting for a bit. That's pride talking. Hastert is gone. That's a start [and should have been gone after his laughable excuses for William Jefferson's malfeasance]. Now let's see what the GOP has in store for the next two years. That's two years the Democrats will have to either show that they mean to fight the war on terror and keep the nation safe or they're simply paying lip service.

The GOP also appeared to be more concerned about staying in government than limiting government. I think that makes a lot of sense. Quite a few GOPers got knocked out because they strayed from their conservative roots. Yet, what to make of the New Jersey GOP hold? How were they able to ride out the storm that cast out GOPers elsewhere, including in GOP strongholds in the South and West.

Democrats did a better job of convincing people that a change was needed, even though it was short on specifics.

Is this a race to the center? I'm not entirely convinced. It may have worked for Joe Lieberman in Connecticut against the nutroots. Will the Democrat leadership take the prudent and adult course of action, or are they going to revert to type - the type that has been spewing calls for impeachment from they found that the situation in Iraq wasn't to their liking.

Here's what the Democrats think are going to be the issues to deal with in the first 100 hours.

_Military: Force an immediate drawdown of troops in Iraq and conduct oversight hearings on missteps on the war. The announcement Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was resigning met Democratic demands that he step down to take responsibility for the situation in Iraq.

_Intelligence: Increase attention given to emerging terrorist threats in Africa and Southeast Asia and devote more resources to North Korea and Iran. More oversight of terrorism and government surveillance.

_Minimum wage. Pass legislation to raise the minimum wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $7.25.

_Energy and environment: Increase incentives for biodiesel, ethanol and other alternative fuels as well as wind, solar, geothermal and other sources of alternative energy. Renegotiate oil and gas leases that waived royalty payments to the government. Impose a national cap on industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Resist Bush's efforts to open more public lands to oil exploration.

_Judiciary: Conduct oversight hearings on treatment of terrorism detainees, domestic surveillance programs and President Bush's use of "signing statements" affecting some requirements in the laws he signs.

_Agriculture: Increase conservation programs and require more corn- based ethanol in motor fuel blends.

After reading through them, my concerns only grow. This is a party that realizes that we're at war with an intractable foe that doesn't surrender. It simply waits out its enemies until such time that things favor them.

I actually found that their general position on intel sounds reasonable enough. We do need to pay more attention to emerging threats in Africa and Southeast Asia. The devil is in the details. Will the Democrats unleash the CIA so that they can gather evidence or are they going to implement so many rules and hoops that gathering intel from unsavory sources is not allowed. And what about those intel leads that show emerging threats from those locations. Will the Democrats have the intestinal fortitude to actually deal with them instead of kicking them forward for someone else to deal with them?

The call for investigations on the military is laughable and simply the first step to defeat in Iraq. Our allies in Iraq and around the world are watching and counting their options since the Democrats appear more than willing to let our Iraqi allies hang out to dry all in order to claim to be supporting the troops and bringing them home.

The Democrats' energy policy is schizophrenic. And that's being charitable. They want increased incentives for biodiesel and other renewable sources, but they want to limit oil and gas exploration. They want more corn-based ethanol blends, despite the fact that the energy costs are far higher than if no action were taken.

They want to close the gap between the taxes owed and what's paid. How they intend to do that is unstated. The Democrats will settle for increased taxes, especially if the Bush cuts are allowed to expire January 1, 2010.

Raising the minimum wage affects how many people to be a key issue? This is a national issue of such significance that it demands action above and beyond other issues like the ongoing problems with the Army Corps of Engineers and the rebuilding following Katrina or the fact that our borders are so porous that no one has a real good idea of how many people are getting into the country illegally, let alone who is coming across our borders? I don't think so.

States have already chosen to deal with the matter of minimum wages locally. If they want to raise their state minimum wages above the federal minimum, they'll get to reap the rewards of lower job growth. Saddling the entire nation with a higher minimum wage makes the entry level position all the more scarce as employers will simply higher fewer people for those jobs. Wage growth depends on the region, and imposing a national solution not only distorts the marketplace, but puts yet more pressure on people leaving high cost of living areas for lower cost of living regions. Watch for an increased migration from the rust belt and northeast to the Southwest and Southeast, where costs of living are lower.

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