Campaign

Democrat Ted Strickland lost his bid for reelection as Ohio’s governor last week. He wasn’t alone. The Ohio U.S. Senate seat went to Bushie Rob Portman; Republicans took five U.S. House seats from the Democrats; Republicans gained control of both houses of the swing state’s Legislature. The once-a-decade gerrymandering (er, redistricting), set to start next year, will do no favors for the Democrats. Oh, and the presumed next Speaker of the House — Cincinnati Republican John Boehner.

The state’s defeated Democrats will soon be cleaning out their desks. One wonders if Strickland still has the oversized HILLARY button he wore during the 2008 primaries, when he was fervently in her camp.

If there is one thing that we can count on from the immediate aftermath of an election, it is the annoying and unceasing bleating from the left about the intelligence of the electorate.

The electorate they are referring to is not actually America as a whole; rather, it is the 35 percent of voters who consider themselves moderates. It is these moderates who act as the arbitrators of this nation, determining which party will win a given election. In return, they receive the praise or derision of the left, depending on which choice they make.

One-fifth of the 112th Congress is made up of new members.

That is huge.

Like the class of 1974 and the class of 1994, this new class will likely consist of serious legislators, complete jokers, future television stars, possible presidential candidates and maybe a felon or two.

The great thing about the House of Representatives is that it actually does represent a wide cross section of America.

The flavor of the new class is heavily scented with Tea.

The Tea Party revolutionaries, like the revolutionaries of previous electoral revolutions, come to Washington with complete disdain for a town that actually becomes quite livable for nine months of the year (it is absolutely brutal here in June, July and August).

While Sarah Palin is largely responsible for setting the welcome example that encouraged so many Republican women to run for political office this year, there is a downside to her role in the midterm elections, too.

The role she played in Christine O'Donnell defeating Mike Castle in Delaware for the GOP Senate nomination, and similarly with Sharron Angle in Nevada (and the possible/likely residual effect in Colorado and perhaps Washington state), will make it difficult, perhaps even impossible, for Republicans to repeal ObamaCare.

As the post-election dust settles, here is my prediction.

I believe the Republican winners have a bigger problem than the Democrats who lost.

The Democrats now realize that they must deal with the need to create jobs, and they will. The Republicans have to deal with the Tea Party extremists, some of whom were beaten — O'Donnell, Angle, Paladino. But the influence of the Tea Party’s successful candidates — Rand Paul, for example — will push mainstream Republicans to take extreme positions and continue their past recalcitrance with the more collegial Obama. Those postures will annoy the middle-of-the-road American public. Traditional Republicans will have to corral their Tea Party partners, and submission is not their nature.

On the David Asman show last night, Ron Paul was asked what plans he and son Rand had for the new term. He said they had talked about entering legislation together in the Senate and the House on the first day. Half joking, Ron Paul said his son suggested legislation to “end the Fed.”

I think it was St. Paul or maybe Kurt Cobain who said, “There is no such thing as a joke.” They might think of doing just that. Certainly it would not pass, but it would set a benchmark allowing them to graph progress from now into the future.

Like many Americans and nearly every pol in Washington, I watched President Obama's news conference yesterday afternoon and came away with a few observations. I believe him (for now) when he says he wants to work with Republicans to move legislation. I, however, feel that comity will dissipate quickly the first chance the White House gets to wage class warfare against the GOP. Someone has convinced him attacking this unknown constituency called "the wealthy" is a surefire winner for Obama. It also tells me this president is an ideologue more than anything else. In that regard, he looks NOTHING like his predecessors. Not even failed President Carter, and certainly nothing like Bill Clinton, who himself would have handled the day after those devastating losses far differently.

I have a confession to make. I am a Californian by birth, a Marylander by choice, and a conservative by reason.

While fiscal conservatives across the nation feel renewed hope that the 2010 elections will restore sanity to our national and state budgets, and constrain the massive overreach of government, deep down, I am kind of bummed.

During debates, interviews, stump speeches, on the trail of one of the nastiest U.S. Senate contests I can remember in my home state of Illinois — and that’s saying a lot —  Republican Mark Kirk almost always landed a bull’s-eye when he took aim at Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. His three-word bullet was Michael “Jaws” Giorango, a “outfit” guy to whom Broadway Bank, when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer there, loaned millions. If the bad guy’s name had been, say, Michael Jay Graham, Giannoulias might be heading to Washington.

Even before Tuesday’s midterm elections, a lot of adjectives were used to describe American voters today: frustrated, disappointed, angry, betrayed.

Looking at the results, I suggest there are two adjectives missing: fickle and dumb.

Voters are fickle, indeed. Yes, they want change. But it seems they want change simply for the sake of change.