Did the Reps win, or did the Dems lose?

It's is apparent that in this election Republicans won. Even Daily Kos, laments the carnage.


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Historic shift in power, Democrats haven't been this much beaten down since before the great depression.



What does this mean for you and me, however? is nothing. nothing at all.....

Beaudreaux said:

I chose to turn my TV on a few minutes ago, and just to see what they were saying turned to MSNBC.

Right now, they are talking race and how it effected the elections, and that the Progressive Agenda is very popular with Americans but that the Democrats didn't talk about it enough.

I have to say that I'm not surprised by what they are saying.

I haven't looked at Fox this morning, but I would hazard to guess that they are saying how the voters are in love with the Republicans.

To me, the election was about two things: President Obama and his historical failures (all of them both foreign and domestic), and; the gridlock that was caused by the Democratic controlled Senate. The average American is not stupid, and understood that Harry Reid refused to allow over 300 bills from the Republican controlled House of Representatives to even be brought to the floor for debate, much less a vote. They understand that, even though the Democrats blamed the GOP for the gridlock (and still are this morning BTW), it was the Democrat leadership that forced their agenda through and stifled the GOP at ever turn.

Now, the GOP made some huge mistakes, like listening to anything Ted Cruz said including shutting down the government over ObamaCare when it was obvious they didn't have any Democrat support to change a dang thing about ObamaCare, and harping on private social issues like abortion and anything anti-gay. Those were and still are issues that will kill the GOP in the public opinion sphere, with the exception, maybe now that they have the Senate, of making changes to ObamaCare.

The GOP needs to understand that they have a mandate on very few issues. ObamaCare, job stimulating legislation, economic issues as a whole and regulatory overreach by many of the Executive Branch Departments (USEPA, NLRB, etc.), are what they DO have a mandate to work on. Social issues? Not so much, other than to get the costs of social programs under control.

I look forward to seeing what Paul Ryan (Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget) does in the next few months, and what his counterpart in the new Senate (probably Jeff Sessions from Alabama) comes up with as well.

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The Reps have been obstructionist, sure, but Harry Reid was just as much... and I think that had been starting to sink in with the average voter the last several months when the Reps backed off a bit and Reid was still doing his thing.

If the Reps want to do well in 2016 the biggest mistake they can make will be to read yesterday as some sort of mandate. But, they probably will, anyway. *sigh*

radcen said:

The Reps have been obstructionist, sure, but Harry Reid was just as much... and I think that had been starting to sink in with the average voter the last several months when the Reps backed off a bit and Reid was still doing his thing.

If the Reps want to do well in 2016 the biggest mistake they can make will be to read yesterday as some sort of mandate. But, they probably will, anyway. *sigh*

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Agreed. The mandate that does exist is very narrow and very limited. I have no doubt that parts of the GOP will go WAY too far, however, and that could hurt them (us, since I'm a GOPer) in 2016. It will be up to the GOP leadership to keep the nutblades under control, and work to get as many reasonable people on both sides of the isle to come together to move legislation to the desk of the President. At that point, if they can accomplish it, will put the onus on the President and the Democrats, which if they do not cooperate, will give the GOP a good chance of a win in 2016.

However, all that said... never be surprised when a politician acts like a blindfolded politician, regardless of party.

radcen said:

Did the Reps win, or did the Dems lose?

The 2014 mid-term elections, overall, nationwide. Now that we have a few hours of hindsight after the polls have closed and the campaigns are done.

I think a little of both, but I lean to the Dems losing the election in the sense that most ran horrible campaigns. They seemed to take their positions for granted, plus they really didn't have much to with with, and seemed incapable of realizing that and convincing people that they were the ones to move forward with.

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I think what this election underscored is that there is a great majority of states where the populous simply isn't married to a given political party as some hardcore political animals imagine.

No matter what the simple figure unemployment rate says, the daily income for millions of Americans is significantly lower after the Great Recession than before.

We are involved in more global skirmishes, Iraq is under siege again and we're returning, our withdrawal from Afghanistan is seen by many also as temporary, the Middle East is our latest quagmire with Syria and ISIS, and a showdown with Iran looms caused by failed diplomacy.

And, of course, there's the recent increase in general trepidation mood caused by the mocking by the White House of the great majority of Americans' intelligent real concerns about Ebola.

Add to that the fear that illegal aliens might get executive-order pardoned, thus causing wage scales to plummet, the complete irrelevancy to the great majority of many pet Democrat issues, the dust on Obamacare has yet to settle and the preliminary is that insurance/medical costs are up for many above-subsidy-level Americans, and the fact, the huge fact, that, yes, the glitzy African American novelty of Barrack Obama has completely worn off revealing the overwhelmed reality of his Presidency underneath ...

... And voters voted for a change.

It's not so much which of the two parties "won" or "lost".

It's that the populous felt insecure with the current and portended future direction of America under the Democrats, and they simply chose the party that showed more concern for security and stability, a different party than the one represented by the party visible standard bearer: The President.

So doing is a fairly simple thing for the population to do. It's common knowledge that Obama is a Democrat and that the only other party that's truly a player is the Republicans. So the task of both voting out Democrats and voting in Republicans was an easy one to both comprehend and perform.

If the parties had been reversed and the disapproval of a sitting President and his party's resultant behaviors were high, it could have easily been the Republicans with whom the public was jaded and the Democrats who were thus attractive.

And that's a good message for the Republicans to remember: a number of leftists said your party was "dead" after Obama won reelection, and clearly that was wishful thinking on their part .. but don't screw up with do-nothingitis during the next two years, or the next novelty for President, Hillary Thefirstwoman, will bury you again.

A word to the wise Republican.