0612 2006 Elections
In a perfect election one hundred percent of available voters would participate after studying issues and investigating candidates. Their vote would be based on the moral, intellectual and servant-leadership abilities of the candidates. In that perfect world the media would report equitably on the views of all candidates. Because the electorate had taken their responsibilities seriously, the candidates would speak only about themselves and refuse to insult, badger, or degrade opponents.
This year only a little over 40% of registered voters spoke and that was considered good for a midterm election. Studies have shown that participants cast votes based on everything from personal research to media blurbs. In the first nine weeks of the campaign season, 77% of television coverage was positive toward Democrats and 13% for Republicans. And then there were those disgusting campaign adds.
Even though traditional values won hands-down through state initiatives, those same values seemed to have less affect on candidate choices. This makes little sense until you realize that people are not polls and they are not simply demographic clumps. Individuals will rally to meet a common threat and they will respond to the calls of strong and wisely principled servant-leaders. “The American people” are individuals not a herd to be steered in one direction or another. They are not polls for justifying a politician’s existence or agenda. They are individuals who recognize commonalities with each other and unite to speak with a stronger voice.
The outcome is a significant difference of issue perception between main street andWashingtonD.C. The voters who ushered in the Republican take-over twelve years ago had united, imagining that their good-faith participation had initiated a new values-based wave proxied by those who cherished values issues as they did.
Apparently those in Congress perceived the mandate differently. Except for a few shining lights, conservative legislators so whimped out that their title had to be changed to “Neo-conservatives.” As marriage was attacked, excuses and waffling prevailed. InIraq, Congress was expected to demand victory but allowed a limited offensive. When the condition of our crumbling borders became evident, they folded to the cries of boisterous illegals and the politics of globalist compromise. As the stem cell issue developed, neo-conservatives limped along afraid to demand protection for unborn embryos and unable to accurately define the debate. While impeccably qualified judicial candidates languished for years in nomination fiascos, they did not have the courage or creative ability to expose liberal obstructionism or neutralize their patently unconstitutional behavior. Instead of effectively capitalizing on a robust national economy they decided to cash in with spending and big government. Finally, immoralities surfaced within a group that had preached integrity.
The election was not a tsunami of change, a vote for a secular nation or any kind of revolution. It was first and foremost about people betrayed who lacked leadership in the face of the far left’s assaults. But an equally important principle was shear circumstances. Only 33 U.S. Senate seats were on the line, which means that two thirds of all possible voters had no input. Of the 33 seats, three were nearly untouchably Democratic but accounted for 60% of the over-all victory margin. Two senate seats were uncontested and three states went Democrat by less than a 2% margin. So much for the six seat senate revolution.
In the House, Democrats made a better showing, but it was no blazing mandate. Thirty-four seats were uncontested, thirty of which were Democrats. Seven of the twenty eight swing districts made their choices with less than 3% margins. What’s more, most of the rest of the twenty-one seats gained were won by Democrats who campaigned as centrist’s or right-leaning. With the normal six year down turn for the party in power and population shifts within districts, the weakness of the turnover is evident.
At the end of the day, the midterm shift in Congress was not a referendum on conservative values, but the polar opposite. It was about a total disconnect between voters’ intentions and their leaders’ perception that they had been licensed to become neo-conservative “good old boys.” It was a constituency that assumed future victories but had to endure compromise and impotency. If it was any kind of referendum, it was onWashingtonD.C., not any change of heart by “the American people”.