Rosen: Democrats at the gates

Published November 10, 2006 at midnight

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Election 2006 is behind us; the consequences await us. Republicans appear to have lost 29 House seats and six Senate seats. The GOP loss is significant but less than the "six-year itch" historical average of 31 House seats and six Senate seats in midyear elections during a president's second term. So it was bad for Republicans but not quite a disaster. Democrats will have a narrow House majority and a two-vote majority in the Senate. With all the pre-election cheerleading for Democrats in the liberal media, it could have been worse.

Assuming House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and company fail to impeach President Bush, he will no doubt find his long lost veto pen to neutralize any real damage Democrats might hope to inflict - at least for the next two years. Bush has called for bipartisan cooperation in crafting reasonable legislation. If Democratic leaders in Congress go along, we might actually get something done. If, instead, they resort to legislative theatrics to provoke presidential vetoes for perceived political gain, we'll have even more gridlock than we've had for the last six years. Where, in spite of a mathematical GOP majority in Congress, a combination of soft Republicans in both houses and Democratic filibusters in the Senate have stalled action on many judicial nominees and meaningful reform of serious, long-term term problems in taxation, immigration, Social Security, health care and education.

In Colorado, Republicans avoided a total shutout by winning races for secretary of state and attorney general. But the big prizes went to Democrats who won the governorship and strengthened their control of the state legislature. With a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court, that gives them a trifecta of power. Bill Ritter strategically and perhaps sincerely ran as a moderate. We'll see if he can resist his party's fever to pull Colorado government to the left.

Tip O'Neill once said all politics is local. Election 2006 may have been an exception. Bush's low approval ratings affected Republicans from coast to coast. This time, it wasn't "the economy, stupid." By most objective measures that's been strong, in spite of concerted efforts by detractors to create negative perceptions. The Republican image was surely tarnished by the inevitable failures, miscalculations, mistakes and personal foibles of any party in power. But war fatigue was the biggest damaging factor for Republicans.

That's not surprising. Americans have little patience for drawn-out overseas conflicts that drain us of lives and treasure. The occupation of Iraq drags on as the body count, reported daily in the media, mounts. The sting of 9/11 has eased for most. The absence of terrorist attacks here at home has lulled many into a false sense of security. Americans who prefer the Democrats' rosier view of world affairs voted for the Islamofascist war on America to go away. It won't, of course, and a retreat from Iraq might only make things worse in the long run. Americans who voted for change might find that it's a change for the worse. Time will tell.

During the campaign, Democrats played it close to the vest. Based on the polls, they judged they were winning, so why take chances? So, they were long on criticism of Republicans and short on alternative policies of their own, other than the standard platitudes. I don't get terribly depressed at election outcomes for the same reason I don't get wildly elated. The pendulum swings. In the words of T.S. Eliot, "There are no lost causes because there are no won causes." I never bought into the bravado of GOP Pollyannas who just a couple of years ago proclaimed "a permanent majority." The only thing permanent in politics is hubris.

The 2008 election campaign is already under way. With Tuesday's victories and Republican blood in the water, Democrats will be focused on expanding their congressional and state house numbers. Shrewd Democrats understand that Tuesday's victories don't mean the country has lurched to the left. "Moderation," or at least the perception of moderation, is the strategy du jour. This is the game plan for Hillary's presidential campaign and Barack Obama's campaign for vice president.

One problem for pragmatic Democratic strategists will be to restrain the MoveOn.org/DailyKos crowd of angry, blogging, left-wing ideologues who serve as the party's shock troops these days, sort of like Mao's Red Guards. These are uncompromising zealots, true believers in the "progressive" (i.e., socialist) cause. Convincing them to be gracious winners and keep their rhetoric down until after the 2008 election won't be easy. They're not stupid, but they are simplistic and self-righteous, and their radicalism isn't good for the party's newly "moderate" image among mainstream American swing voters. As Whitaker Chambers observed, "The left can only take power through deception."

Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.

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