The retiring Boomers and Seniors turned out in massive numbers for the Republicans, and younger voters, African-Americans, and Latinos didn't turn out for the Dems. Really is that simple. The electorate this time around skewed some 41% conservative, 29% moderate, and only 20% liberal.
And those Seniors turned out in massive numbers for the Tea Party because of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent scaring them. Some 40% of Americans said that they were worse off than they were two years ago. So why didn't minority voters and younger voters turn out? It probably has to do with the much, much higher unemployment numbers among African-Americans (16.1% by last count) and Americans under 25 (12.4%) than the national average. Some ten million more voters turned out for the GOP nationally adding up all the Senate results.
But the biggest losers? The House Blue Dog Dems. Out of 54 Blue Dogs, 28 of them lost, four more are down to the wire.
There's a lesson there if the Dems choose to heed it.
And with that, I retire the 2010 Election tag. On to 2012.
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16 comments:
would the blue dogs have done better if they'd campaigned as liberals? hardly likely. it remains to be seen how this is going to shake out, but my guess is that very few democrats are going to take this as a hint that they should be more liberal when it comes to campaigning.
Probably not. They would of had to not just campaign as Dems, but actually vote as Dems too.
You dance in the middle of the road, you get hit by the truck.
It doesn't really surprise me that the blue dogs lost heavily. Most of them are, if I remember correctly, Democrats who got elected in heavily Republican districts by campaigning as conservative/centrist Democrats (and by capitalizing on the anti-Republican anti-incumbent sentiment at the time).
Whether you like or dislike what happened in Washington over the last two years, you can hardly call it a victory for centrism.
The result? Voters in a lot of districts feel like the blue dogs they sent to Congress didn't do what they promised to do - whether they did or not.
You dance in the middle of the road, you get hit by the truck.
Nope, sounds nice but couldn't be further from the truth. Get ready for 2 more years of fierce battling in Washington.
Anyway I came back for a post or two just to see how you would react. Figured it would along this line, but that's because mainstream liberals are doing the same. Now we'll have no legislation get passed, but at the very least House Speaker Elect Orange Julius can take the tax payer backed credit card away from Obama.
Also kudos to Obama for calling for calling Boehner, I honestly didn't expect him to. I figured he would follow soon to be ex speaker Pelosi's lead.
You want to know what really happened? You're not going to want to hear this.
The party with the black President lost the white vote so overwhelmingly that the minority vote that did turn out didn't matter. It wasn't running as centrists, you're right about the "blue dogs" not having a chance in hell. It wasn't that they weren't liberal enough, ask Russ Feingold how that turned out.
It was Obama alienating the white voter in this country, and the 50-state "southern strategy" working perfectly. White voters still decide elections. 2012 will be another disaster like 2010 unless the Democrats make the obvious choice to win back the white vote...especially women.
I'll let you figure out the obvious candidate for that.
Hillary? Really?
So you're saying that white America turned overwhelmingly racist in just two years after electing the first African-American President?
Do you see the problem with that?
You're clearly not paying attention.
How many times have you laid out the reasons why the economy will be worse in 2012 than it is now? Do you think Obama is going to get re-elected as a result?
We're going to have a new President in 2012 as a result. Would you rather have Hillary Clinton as president or Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, or from what the conservatives are saying this morning, Rand Paul?
Be honest here.
How many times has a sitting President been challenged by a primary opponent who defeated them, let alone went on to win the White House?
One less than the number of African American Presidents we've had.
Well then, just like 2008, there's a first time for everything.
Obama will not win re-election in 2012. Again, would you prefer Hillary or a Republican?
Haha, Booger Eating Moron thinks John Boehner is going to be Speaker of the House.
How on earth can a brand newly minted Teatard vote for the bloated corrupt symbol of everything they said they were trying to purge from the Republican Party, the man who wept crocodile tears for the economy when he begged GOPers to vote for the evil TARP?
Boehner's going to get slagged and smeared by the Teatards with a savagery that Democrats would do well to observe.
Hillary. I reject your position that Obama cannot win in 2012 however.
And you know, I think there's a fair amount of evidence that none of the House or Senate leadership on either side will be the same in the next Congress.
Obama can win if the economy magically improves in the next two years. Do you really see that happening with a Republican-controlled House?
A nearly guaranteed Hillary Clinton win in 2012 versus a nearly guaranteed Obama loss in 2012.
Those are your only choices and you damn well know it.
And as a matter of fact the best thing Barack Obama can do is announce he's pretty much firing his entire White House staff.
He needs to do this before Hillary resigns at State. That is coming very soon, I guarantee you this.
1. Allow me to state that it's about time Z earned himself a PUMA troll. No clown college is complete without Sad-Faced Clown. Welcome!
2. Allow me to further state that:
A nearly guaranteed Hillary Clinton win in 2012 versus a nearly guaranteed Obama loss in 2012.
...is some of the loveliest magical sparkle pony thinking I've seen recently. You're arguing that, if the economy is still so bad in 2011 that Clinton can mount a successful primary challenge, that non-base voters will then almost certainly reward the Democrats?
I'd say that it's almost certain that if things are so bad that Clinton could actually mount a successful primary challenge, she'd be an idiot to do it. She ain't an idiot for anything other than valuing Mark Penn's opinion.
@Waffles:
O HAI! Long time, no see! I must remember to incant your name more often, it seems you only appear when I mention that I miss you because troll IQ drops precipitously whenever you wander off. Anyway, to blogwar!
You dance in the middle of the road, you get hit by the truck.
Nope, sounds nice but couldn't be further from the truth. Get ready for 2 more years of fierce battling in Washington.
These two things are not mutually exclusive. Moderate Republicans (generally) got killed in the primaries. Moderate Democrats (generally) got killed in the election. The next 2 years will (generally) make the last 2 years seem like the two parties were holding hands while having a strident disagreement.
And...
at the very least House Speaker Elect Orange Julius can take the tax payer backed credit card away from Obama
and use it to ring up some tax cuts. BA-ZING! Seriously, though, while I agree with you that Boehner will probably wind up as Speaker, I have little expectation of an attempt to curb the deficit other than as an excuse to fight for the sake of fighting. Why make politically challenging and unpopular moves now, when you can hang it all on the President, and have a real shot at all the marbles in 2012?
why should obama have congratulated boehner?
obama has been inarguably classy towards the republicans no matter how much they've acted like bratty children. where's it gotten him? nowhere. in spite of the message a lot of people are taking from alan grayson's loss, a big part of the dem's (and obama's) failure last night is that it looks like they just won't fight back. when an idiot like boehner talks about the election results as a message sent by the american people it begs a question: why didn't he and his knuckle-dragging brethren listen to that message when it was unequivocally and loudly delivered in november 2008?
obama should have told boehner to go fuck himself.
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