Time to crank up the blog again. I'm not sure how many readers are left after my election season hiatus, but I've got the itch to write again.
We're a few days shy of two weeks since Election Day and since then, I've been thinking about what it all means. I think anyone with even a passing interest in politics recognizes the historic nature of the November 2nd election. The funny thing is that we just had a historic election two years ago. There seems to be some seismeic rumblings going on in the electorate. The impression I come away with is that nobody and no party is safe anymore. The people are demanding change in how the business of government is done. They also want grown-ups who will make grown up decisions. The citizens want their politicians to take a long-term strategic approach to governing versus the short term politically opportune approach. If these characteristics are not present, I believe now, more than ever, people are willing to vote out previously safe incumbents.
Party registration seems to have less and less to do with how a person chooses to vote. Otherwise, we wouldn't see as many party upheavals as there have been in the past few years. In 2004, the Republican Party was on a roll. They had picked up seats in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House in 2002 and won the presidency again in 2004. The political pundits and news writers routinely issued the obituary for the Democratic Party. In 2006, the tide turned. Frustrated by the progress of the Iraq War, voters gave the Senate and the House to the Democrats. In 2008, the Democrats made more gains, including the presidency. Obama charged into office promising to be a force for bipartisanship and transparency in addition to repairing the ailing economy. The Republicans were given up for dead after two bad election cycles. After two years of not living up to expectations, the GOP has come charging back. People want change and they are willing to vote for the opposition party to obtain it.
It remains to be seen what will happen in the next election cycle. If history is to be our guide, the Republicans should not assume the electorate will give them a pass. Those who turned out in force for the GOP in this election will abandon them in the next if they forget the mandate that brought them to office.
3 comments:
I'm glad to see the blog back! I think frustration has just about everything to do with the big swings since 2006. But is the electorate rational? Taken as a whole, what does the public want from government? Election results are so inconsistent... just two years after Obama, we get Tea Party folks elected. I think more of the voting public needs to consider what they think the role of government should be, and not just vote the opposition out of frustration.
Despite the fact that our national institutions were designed to preclude a purely democratic form of gov't, the information revolution and the 24-hour news cycle seem to have brought us closer to it. I read a piece the other day about the decline in the average length of the sound bite, and the concomitant increase in the average length of the TV image, since the 1960s. What that statistic tells me is that the electorate (as a whole) cares less and less about "substance." And that, it seems to me, is dangerous to a republic.
Trait, I'm still here. I'm still reading. Glad you're back to writing here, and congratulations on the win for Mary Fallin!
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