Republican 2014 Mid-term Rout Not as Bad For Obama as It Appears at First Blush
The Republicans seized control of the Senate and Congress
Tuesday. The Republicans won by picking
the low hanging fruit of hating Obama.
But hating Obama is not a policy.
While all the Republicans may hate Obama, that
does not translate into a coherent platform for governing. This will become obvious as the Republican Senate
majority fractures into three groups, each led by an aspiring presidential
candidate: Ted Cruz for the crazies, shut down the government, go to war with
Iran faction; Rand Paul for domestic Libertarian and isolationist foreign
policy wing, and Marco Rubio for the centrist compromisers. Mitch McConnell predicts that the Senate will
function. It will, but not the way he
thinks. This is going to be a coalition
government because the voters know that personal income is still in the gutter
and no one, not the Republicans nor the Democrats, seem to have an answer. The voters have given the Republicans a seat
at the table. As has been said before on
this website, sometimes the voters elect the solution, and sometimes they elect
the problem and force it to govern. The
Republican rout is an example of the latter.
In the process, they
dispatched half a dozen Democratic Senators who were children of former
Senators and Governors. Pryor in Arkansas, Udall in Colorado, Begich in Alaska, Landrieu in Louisiana (maybe),
Rockefeller’s seat in West Virginia (Rockefeller is related to multiple
governors, including a Vice-President), while Nunn and Carter in Georgia failed
to gain any traction. So, while the
Senate maybe Republican, it has a lot more self-starters and self-made
politicians like Obama himself. This
will produce some surprises. And, as for the most expensive Senate race in
history, North Carolina, exactly one North Carolina Senator has won re-election
since 1996, Richard Burt in 2010.
What the election
really does is free Obama of the Democratic Party and forces him to govern as
an independent. The election was a rout
for the Democrats, not Obama personally. Pundits cite the Keystone Pipeline as
the first probable victory. Obama
personally probably supports Keystone, it is consistent with his energy
independent platform plank from 2008, but he was prevented from pursuing it
because of political pressure from the environmentalists of his own party,
which has now been soundly defeated, especially the person of the environmentalist
Udall family.
But the real surprise
is coming in Foreign policy. Senator
John McCain now becomes chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCain, a former prisoner of war, is in Obama’s
corner on torture and closing Guantanamo.
More significantly. McCain served in the Navy
where his father was an Admiral in 1967 when, during the 1967 Six Day War
(which Israel started) the Israelis “accidentally” attacked the USS Liberty,
killing 34 sailors, wounding 171 and almost sinking the ship. It is going to be McCain, not Mitch
McConnell, who is going to be the Senate Majority Leader when it comes to
foreign policy and defense issues, and he will be an Obama supporter on the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu boosted
the Republicans by accusing Obama of being “un-American” by opposing the
illegal building of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem which is now sparking
Palestinian suicide attacks and riots. One of Netanyahu’s claims to fame in
Israel is that he “understands” American politics. This will be a good lesson for him in looking
out for what you wish for.
People
are going to be stunned by how much Obama is going to be able to accomplish in
the last two years of his presidency, because Obama is the eighth best
president in American history, although even he isn’t smart enough (and neither
is anyone else) to figure out the American electorate. That’s why we have
elections. Someone should tell that to
the Supreme Court.