Election reflections

It’s been two days since the 2010 mid-term elections, enough time to come up with some responses.  First, there does not seem to be a compelling narrative to explain each and every race.  The tea party didn’t sweep – but it did manage to pull the republican party further to the right.  As a consequence, the democrats have also moved to the right.  This was not necessarily seen in the election (though Feingold lost, Boxer won; though Grayson lost, so did most of the blue dogs).  It is seen in the Obama administration’s response.

Following a cabinet meeting today, Obama (or one of his spokespeople) declared that priority one for the lame duck congress is to extend the Bush tax cuts.  This is a giant mistake.  How far to the right are you trying to go?  And if you were planning this, you really should have proposed it before the election as a way to save some dem seats (or fought it, similarly as a  way to save dem seats).  What is the political strategy here?  Take the lame duck session and try to ram through the final liberal items you will be able to tackle for the next two years.  Don’t start the republicans’ agenda for them.

So the republicans will have the House, and the dems the Senate.  Let’s take the Senate first.  The dems have a smaller caucus that now includes Joe Manchin, someone further to the right than Ben Nelson.  Good luck with that.  And the republicans have the house and, along with it, subpoena power.  I have a feeling a do-nothing congress will be better than anything that can pass through these two legislative bodies.

I’ll take on California’s good news in a later post.  Go, California!