Liberal columnist Ezra Klein is out with a piece today explaining that although Democrats in Congress suffered their biggest defeat in more than 50 years, they were actually very successful. After all, they passed all of this legislation and that is the name of the game for Congress. Klein actually points to victories like the requirement that fast food restaurants post calorie counts and nutritional information at drive through windows and says this is a big victory. He also touts the great success of the stimulus and financial "reform". He saves his biggest praise for obamacare.
One wonders if Klein is a good indicator for the mindset of the core liberal constituency in this country. If so, then liberalism will need a major mistake by the Republicans to regain power in the near future.
The American people have spoken very clearly and rejected the basic program of Obama and the Obamacrats. They want less government and spending, not more. They want less regulation, not more. They want to choose their own health care, not have the government force everyone into bureaucratic plans that guarantee the same poor coverage for everyone.
The choice made was overwhelming. Republicans took about 56% of the house seats while the Democrats got 44%. Even though they did not win the Senate, Republicans still took 65% of the seats up for election, leaving the Democrats with only 35%. In the governors' races, Republicans again took two-thirds of the seats up for election. The state legislative races were even more lopsided towards the Republicans. Over a quarter of all the state legislative houses swung from Democrat control to Republican control. A few went Republican for the first time in almost 150 years.
Numbers like those cannot be achieved without a clear national choice for the Republicans' philosophy. So if Klein and his fellow liberals want to keep telling themselves what great achievements they made, they had better realize that their "achievements" are not viewed favorably by the American people from whom all power comes in this country.
My guess is that as we move closer to 2012, we will start hearing the Democrats move back to the stealth centrist discussion that they used in 2006 and 2008. Their masquerade as a centrist party was an important element in their victories in those years. Only once they achieved power did they reveal their true intentions. The longer they cling to their actions in power, the longer they will go without a restoration of that power. Hopefully, the American people will remember for decades what the Democrats did over the last two years. If so, the Democrats will be in the wilderness for a long, long time.
There is no reason to believe that these views will change in two, four or six years.
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