Does the reader think it is possible that a pee wee football team can become Super Bowl champs? The reader laughs and maybe even says ‘of course not’. This is exactly what happened on November 7th. The Democrats swept the House and appear that they may also take the Senate without a single plan of action. Not one alternative was given during the months of rant by the left and in the end it wasn’t the left that won it for them either.
This morning your author listened to commentary by former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton Administration Robert Reich. He was giving his advice to fellow Democrats. Among many talking points, Reich highlighted the idea of curbing executive’s pay and taking another look at the Kyoto Treaty. Reich attempted to state that the war in Iraq was a motivating factor in the Republicans’ defeat. Your author disagrees. The proof was the defeat of Democrat newcomer Ned Lamont of Connecticut as the former Democrat now Independent Joseph Lieberman was reelected. Lamont’s entire campaign was based on Lieberman’s support for President Bush and the war.
The left wing of the Democrat Party didn’t win this election and Reich has it wrong. Every single race loss by the Republicans was because what has been described as a conservative Democrat opponent. Their supporters weren’t the traditional Democrat base consisting of the likes of Cindy Sheehan, ACLU and ambulance chasing trial attorneys or labor unions. They were the mom and pop mid west, middle class types that believed the 1994 Republican authored Contract With America. These were the same people, which your author can certainly understand, that had seen enough of the maverick moves made by the likes of Senator John McCain that politicized such issues as torture and border security, the Mark Foley scandal, Jack Abramoff’s felonious ties to many House Republicans and the inability of the Congress to shrink the size of government. Additionally President Bush’s slow response to critics can cap off the playbook on how to lose a mid term election.
The new Democrats that have won will have a tougher time as they must comply with their constituents’ wishes and at the same time appease the leadership. They won’t be the leadership but rather the senior and seasoned Democrat representatives will serve in this capacity, which make no illusions of their left leaning politics, such as Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. She is almost guaranteed to become the Speaker of the House. Mrs. Pelosi has all but referred to the President as a son of a bitch on televised speeches. Since Democrats have long been critical in what they refer to as ‘tax breaks for the rich’, it should be noted that Mrs. Pelosi and her husband have a net worth of $92 million. Representative Henry Waxman also from California is now expected to chair the Government Reform Committee, which has to power to call investigations, will tie up many American industries on attempted fact finding inquiries marching along the class warfare mantra shouted by many of his kind.
Others include Representative Charles Rangel of Harlem, who will now chair the Ways and Means Committee. The group sets policy regarding taxes and trade. Rangel has long been a critic of President Bush’s tax breaks, medicare reform and the war on terror. Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson will now head up the Agriculture Committee. He will more than likely attempt to rollback farm subsidy reform, which may open the country up to lawsuits brought forth by the World Trade Organization. Representative Barney Frank, who survived his own same sex scandal in 1990 involving his relationship with a gay prostitute named Steve Gobie, will chair the powerful Financial Services Committee. The committee oversees insurance, banking and securities industries. Congressman John Conyers from Detroit will chair the Judiciary Committee. The group is in charge of hearings prior to confirmations for Supreme Court justice, judges for court of appeals and district courts. In the past Conyers has called to move for impeachment hearings against President Bush.
Another one is Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who easily won his reelection bid and whose term will expire in 2012. If he lives to this year he will have served as a senator for fifty years. Kennedy will chair the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. The committee oversees these same issues as its name implies. Kennedy, who in 2003 declared a net worth of nearly $10 million, has never worked a legitimate job in his life and knows little about the labor of anything except for laboring through multiple personal scandals.
The new so-called conservative Democrats will have a tough time. The Michael Moores of the left may tell the reader they helped win this election but they didn’t as your author proved with the Lieberman-Lamont election. The Republicans will have to find a group of solid leaders. In your author’s opinion the last leader of any type was Newt Gingrich and before him President Ronald Reagan. In two years the political landscape will change greatly as the same freshmen will have to return to constituents and explain if they stood up for the conservative values they campaigned on or did they bow to the likes of the left wingers. Either way America won’t be sold on the idea of Pelosi and her ilk’s teachings. These old left leaning Democrat dinosaurs may finally have their time in the sun but what they expect to reasonably accomplish is beyond your author’s scope. A voter’s backlash should never be an overly celebrated victory because the citizenry is saying that the other side failed to meet our expectations and given our two party system your party is all that remains. The only thing it proves is that Democracy works. A hollow victory? Yes. A long- term change? Not likely, not if the Republicans can learn from it.
