Finally Some Work Might Actually Get Done In D.C.
By Jason Johnson
Published on 11/11/2010
Right
now there are millions of Democratic and Progressive voters who think
that the world is coming to an end. The Republican sweep of government,
which was much more substantial than most press reports are truly
presenting, has left all too many people thinking that we’ve reached a
nadir in American politics.
Believe it or not, the results of
Election Tuesday are not entirely bad, unless you are a partisan
Democrat. If you’re simply an American citizen, this might be a sign
that real progress is going to be made, at least on the national level.
First, let us collectively realize just how deep and substantial the 2010 elections were.
Everyone
knows the big news – that Republicans won 55 seats in the House of
Representatives, giving them a majority and putting Nancy Pelosi out of a
job. Republicans also took eight seats in the Senate, and they likely
would have gained more if they hadn’t wasted their nominations on right
wing Tea Party candidates such as Christine O’Donnell in Delaware or
Sharon Angle in Nevada. More importantly Republicans won several
governor’s mansions, including solidly blue presidential states such as
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine. But likely the most serious
change that occurred after Tuesday’s smackdown of the president was the
19 state houses that were overtaken by the Republicans; State Houses
that will be responsible for re-drawing Congressional districts in the
coming year based on the new census that could affect presidential
campaign politics for another decade.
Despite cries from the
Democrats, the response of the Republican leadership to last week’s
elections has been rather muted. There was a conspicuous lack of crowing
and bragging on the part of Republican leadership after the elections,
with future Speaker of the House John Boehner and soon to be ex-Republic
National Chairman Michael Steele both being extremely humble about the
results. When asked what these results meant for the president,
Democrats and Steele said that they were a warning sign to both parties.
Steele went on to say that if the Republicans failed to go to
Washington and fix the economy and do something about the national debt
they’d be out of a job in 2012.
Boehner, with an equal amount of
unforced humility, has come out and said that even with the election
results that the president is still responsible for setting the
legislative agenda.
So what does this all mean? Are Republicans
suddenly getting humble in the face of their incredible success or are
they playing possum before going on a rampage of obstructionism for the
next 18 months? I would argue neither. In fact, the 2010 election
results all but guarantee that there should be some real positive steps
made in regards to the economy in the coming year.
Republicans
were swept into office last week in large part due to the anger on the
part of many American citizens about the economy and the seeming failure
of Obama to appear singularly focused on the issue that mattered to
most of the public. It was not, in any shape way or form an endorsement
of the Republican Party, or their policies as much as it was a rejection
of dithering on the part of Democrats. The Republicans and Democrats
know this, and after three massive changes in houses of Congress in
2006, 2008 and 2010 both parties realize that the public is impatient
and has no party loyalty when jobs are scarce.
The Republicans
have two options. The first is to continue to obstruct the president’s
plans hoping this will leave him weakened enough to be defeated in 2012.
The weakness in that plan is that this will leave a Republican
presidential nominee with nothing to run on as well, and runs the risk
of the GOP being kicked out of Congress again just as Steele suggested.
The
other option is to put forth aggressive policies targeted at improving
the economy in key Midwestern states, take full credit publicly and use
those improvements as a launching pad for the myriad GOP candidates who
will be coming out of the woodwork next year. Both the president and
Republicans have incentive to improve the economy now, and both run the
risk of losing their jobs in two years if they don’t. While they may not
want to work together, neither the White House nor Republican goals can
be met if they work separately. And that is good news for the American
people.
(Dr. Jason Johnson is an associate professor of political science and communications at Hiram College in Ohio, where he teaches courses in campaigns and elections, pop culture, and the politics of sports. He can be reached at johnsonja@hiram.edu.)
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