Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Republicans won bigger than people think

Republicans more or less swept the House, with the biggest win is something like 80 years.  People are disappointed about the Senate races, where the Democrats (barely) hung on to keep their majority.  This is actually worse for the Democrats than if they'd lost outright.  You can sum up why in four words:

Majority Leader Harry Reid.

He is massively unpopular throughout the country.  He'll be front and center in all the bruising battles over ObamaCare repeal and shutdown of selective Federal departments for the next two years.  It's hard to see him effectively building a Democratic coalition for 2012.

Of course, the Democrats could pull his leadership post, citing the recent election results as justification.  The problem here is that it really wasn't his fault so much as Obama's and Nancy Pelosi's, and he did shepherd the top Democratic priority (Health Care) through to a successful vote, so this seems like it would alienate the rank and file.

Plus, he's a mean, powerful SOB.  Payback would be hell.

All in all, the Republicans came out with the optimal result.  Now they need to get to work, and show a bunch of very skeptical people (like me) that they're fit to govern.

5 comments:

RJIII said...

And we don't have that gun grabbing power hungry @**hole Chucky Schumer in charge like was probable if Harry lost.

Wild Ed said...

Yes but the President just doesn't get it?
Wild Ed's Texas Outdoors

NotClauswitz said...

No, the Prez definitely does NOT get it. His mind is firmly molded around a particular set of assumptions that happen to be inaccurate and beyond that totally, provably wrong.

al fin said...

Obama's enemies are working their way closer and closer to his open flank. Eventually even the media won't be able to cover for him any longer.

The repubs won very big at the state level. That's where a lot of the big battle of public sector unions vs. the taxpayers is going to happen.

All those new repub governors and state level representatives are going to make a lot of waves against Obama's radical mandates to the states.

Boat Guy said...

+1 for dakota's assessment. Better Harry than Shumer.
He won in NV because he is indeed "... a mean, powerful SOB". I rather doubt he had anything close to a majority of the legitimate votes cast.