The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Okay, I admit it. I'm thrilled that the Republican Party took a "thumping", to quote Bush II, in the midterm elections. Given all of the incompetence and corruption of the Congressional leadership, especially in the House of Representative, as well as the insane, reality-defying policies of the President on Iraq, I couldn't for the life of me understand how the result could be otherwise. Think about it: if you saw these kinds of accomplishments on a resume, would you hire these folks?

Besides taking the November 7 mini-revolution as evidence that there is still a Divine Presence in the world (I hesitate to say "God" for fear of evangelical backlash), I believe it is worthwhile reflecting on what this election may mean for both governance and politics in the future. The Democratic Party has now been tasked with a substantial charge -- how to actually participate in the governance process they have been almost completely excluded from for nearly 6 years. If this is to be a real sea change in American politics, it's up to the Democrats elected this past week to do the job they have been hired to do.

One commentator has offered that this election represents the end of the conservative era that started back in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. As someone who came of political age in the Reagan era, it's hard to imagine a world outside of this construct. But, I think there is something to this. Two years ago, the pundits made sense of Bush's re-election by concluding it was all about "values" -- how the values of the president matched with the values of the electorate and how the Democrats neglected to demonstrate clearly what they stood for. This year, we have the demise of "values" and the rise of pragmatism.

What I think this election demonstrates is that you can appeal to the social and moral issues only so long before people wonder when you are actually going to get the job done. For the vast majority of Americans -- people who don't see themselves tied very much to ideology -- the expectation is that government will somehow address the problems facing the country. When American soldiers are dying in Iraq, job security seems non-existent, health care remains an elusive goal for many uninsured, and our environmental resources are being consumed at an expensive and alarming rate, bickering over Terri Schiavo's right to die and how to stop gay men and women from legally marrying seem like unnecessary and unsupportable distractions.

Americans expressed hopefulness in their votes on November 7th, even as they remain worried about the state of the war and the country. Rather than let themselves be cynically manipulated on cultural and social issues, they voted with the expectation that their representatives may actually have something constructive to do.

Ideology isn't completely dead. But, in light of the serious issues facing the nation, it may just be a luxury we can't afford at the moment.