Don't let anyone fool you-this election was about one thing and one thing only : 9.6% unemployment

[TZ]

In Maryland (where I live) the unemployment rate is a lot lower at 7% and with one exception in a pretty red county all the Dems in Maryland that were up for re-election won. In fact, I voted staight Democrat in Montgomery County and THEY ALL WON. So this Big Government is EVUL, only Republicans can save us meme is complete bullshit here in Maryland. Why? Because although no place is good economically right now, Maryland is doing better than the vast majority of the country.

The governor's race here kinda illustrates this. Robert Ehrlich made the case that Maryland was better off economically under him 4 years ago--however true that might be statistically, most people understand that O'Malley had nothing to do with the policies that started this long dark recession. The race wasn't even close..Ehrlich lost 55-44%.
I also have a relative who is a political scientist who pretty much called most of the races won and lost last night correctly, and he told me that basically "Its the economy, stupid...its ALWAYS the economy. If national unemployment was at 6% no turnover would have occured". Considering thats close to what we saw in Maryland, I'd say that was correct. And Maryland has gotten a little conservative over the years as Ehrlich actually did win the Governorship in 2002.

What my relative points out is that the Republicans have no where close to the votes to ovverride any veto Obama brings down..and he will veto their crap-like trying to defund HCR for example. Pretty much they can yell and scream and make idiots of themselves and not really accomplish anything. Oh and if they decide to do to Obama what they did with Clinton in "investigations", I'm betting an electorate who wants problems SOLVED isn't going to be generous.

In 1983 the economy sucked and Reagan had about the same approval numbers (even a bit lower) than Obama does. His party lost control of congress. Dems had higher approval ratings..Yet in two years after that, the economy had imporved enough that the presidential election wasn't even close.
Finally, I do think the Republicans really don't understand what this election means in general. If they do they don't act like it. They campaigned here, on the evils of big government...How does one not understand that in a state that has a huge population that is EMPLOYED by the government thats not going to go over well?
In other words, let the Republicans dance and act all victorious right now. I have a feeling it will be a much shorter period of time before the American public sees they have nothing new or effective to offer the public..and this will be very evident in 2012. So no, I'm not going to go around feeling sad today.

[ProSense]

1. Probably,

but what did Republicans do to convince people that, after running the country into the ground, they can do better?

Did people forget, or even know, that these Republicans voted against jobs bills and aid for the unemployed?

During the 1994 mid-terms, the economy wasn't bad, and Democrats lost big.

[TZ]

4. They also were scandal weary

And for some reason, Americans like divided government--almost always at mid-term elections the party in power loses seats. BTW, you heard the media say that this was an upswell of anti-incumbant feeling..Thats completely bogus. I beleive the percentage of incumbents that won this year was actually higher than the past decade (something like 93% IIRC)

[de novo]

5. Doesn't matter. That is American politics for you.

Had the Dems, who held both Houses and the WH put the people to work, they wouldn't have suffered the losses they did last night.

If the party in power doesn't produce results, in this case jobs, they will be voted out. It is as predictable as the rising sun.

[FBaggins]

You put your finger on it. It's really at least TWO reasons.

High unemployment (or the economy in general) and the perception that the party in power hadn't done enough to fix the problem.

But that leaves room for plenty of other arguments. Was it because of HCR? Maybe not, but spending months working on HCR apparently (not actually) to the exclusion of the economy feeds the perception that we didn't do enough.

[TZ]

18. Yes, I think perception was definitely part of the problem

The fact that most people think the stimulus didn't do ANYTHING tells you that is a HUGE reason too.

[FBaggins]

27. The question has always been "are you better off now than when you elected me?"

It isn't "are the good things that I did recognizable when mixed in with the things I couldn't control?"

It may be true... but it doesn't sell. Those who doubted this have now learned the hard way.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. I Think I Agree With Everything You Said

But if the economy is in the ditch in 012 we will be in the same position as we are now but we will be lamenting the loss of the presidency in addition to House seats, Senate seats, Governors seat, and Legislatures.

However if the economy noticeably improves we can begin to recover the ground we lost.

Those are the stakes.

[TZ]

6. I have reason to believe from what I have seen locally

that the economy IS improving but pretty slowly...Job market/housing market here is starting to pick up. It might take a bit, but I believe we will see this occuring nationally soon

[okieinpain]

3. i agree, a friend was in town from atlanta. he informed me that

he's losing his job and his daughter has been out of work for 18 months. jobs, jobs, jobs, I hope president obama figures that out before 2012, or we will really be in trouble.

[WestSeattle2]

12. I think unemployment will need to be under 7% BY 2012 - that's

real unemployment, not the crap numbers the government spews out every month that no one believes. To get there the economy needs to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs from this month forward.

In 2012 the electorate will be saying "You inherited an economy with 9% unemployment, now here it is four years and trillions of dollars later and?..." It will either be "and you've done a great job", or "and we have little or nothing to show for it."

[okieinpain]

14. i agree. n/t.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. If That's The Benchmark President Obama Might As Well Be Writing His Concession Speech

The consensus figure is somewhere between eight percent and where it is now.

[de novo]

7. You are quite right.

[GOTV]

8. Slight modification: It was about who they think will fix the 9.6% unemployment...

... if it appeared to them that Obama and the Dems we're going in the right direction and were being held back by the GOP then it would have been the GOP that suffered.

When you spend all your time going for bi-partisanship you're saying that our ideas really are not all that different and with a little tweaking the mesh together just fine. Of course while Obama has been saying the GOP is not so bad and we can incorporate their ideas, the GOP has been saying Obama is a socialist from Kenya that wants to pull the plug on Grandma.

The GOP clearly drew an inaccurate difference and therefore won.

[Stuckinthebush]

9. It was about TWO things. Unemployment

and the fact that Americans are idiots.

We have a history of voting against our best interests.

[budkin]

10. It's always about the economy

[TBF]

13. Yup - politics is economics.

It was foolish to take on health care & tell a bunch of folks without jobs that they now have mandatory premiums. Jobs should have been priority one - and still should be priority one.

[TZ]

20. I don't think taking on HCR was foolish

I think Obama thought that if he didn't push HCR through in the first two years, it wouldn't happen. Looks like thats the case. And as a chronically ill person who will and currently does benefit from HCR, can't say I really disagree.

[TBF]

30. The only "reform" was pre-existing conditions -

that helps you and maybe me (I have arthritis - diagnosed earlier this year - so elements of the plan may help me at some point).

Mostly the bill was a sell-out to insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

I'm not saying it shouldn't have been done, but I would've worked on the economy first (along with ending the wars), and then tackled health care. Priorities ...

[TZ]

31. lifetime caps are gone

My federal worker friends can have their children on their policy until they are 26...there is lots and lots of good in that bill. Could there have been more, sure, but to deny the helpfulness of this bill is a little disingenious. BTW, my company has already announced that premiums will stay the same this year as they were last year. Coincidence? I don't think so. And I actually work in the biopharmaceutical industry and while it is helpful to my company in some ways, I can tell you this right now..in no way is it actually going to increase profits for this company, which is a claim I hear all the time.

[Gormy Cuss]

34. Taking on HCR wasn't the foolish move -- it's the mandatory buy-in that was foolish in these times

--and by foolish I mean letting the spinners harp about that without shooting them down at every turn. It was also pretty foolish to give insurance companies five years to maximize their profit positions, and it was foolish to let go of a strong public option.

PPACA is a major accomplishment in health insurance reform but it sucks as health care reform. It should have been marketed as insurance reform -- then people would be happier with it.

[Jennicut]

11. Of course it is about the economy. And it probably won't get better any time soon.

A lot of big corps are sitting on their asses and hoarding money. They are not going to help Obama in anyway, and they have gotten partly what they wanted.

[Peacetrain]

15. You are wrong about that.. Ia has one of the lowest unemployment rates and we got hammered

[bigwillq]

16. So what were the reasons?

:shrug:

[Peacetrain]

21. Honestly ...big shadowy money

[TZ]

22. Iowa is also traditonally somewhat red.

Some places like Iowa and Virginia, which have voted R most of the time just went back to old trends.

[Dawgs]

17. No! It was about the whole economy. Many people, like my wife and I, are still working, but...

We are underwater on our house by no fault of our own.

My point is that everyone is hurting - for whatever reason.

[JCMach1]

19. Not exactly, about doing nothing bold about unemployment, or much else

[TZ]

23. If you don't think the stimulus package was "bold" on unemployment

than you actually share some of the ill informed nature that put Republicans in office, in my opinion. I think another stimulus bill is needed but no one in Congress wanted to do that (outside of a handful of Dems..most of whom are still there, ironically)

[mistertrickster]

25. It wasn't bold enough. Obama should have put in place a new WPA. nt

[JCMach1]

26. I tend to agree with Krugman about how shallow the stimulus was

[mistertrickster]

24. Totally agree. In fact, I'll go you one further. IMHO, every election is about the economy.

How do you think a one-term black Senator got elected?

There's really only ONE issue: wage slavery. The American people are feeling the effects of 40 years of unchecked corporate power stealing their productivity, but they don't know what's causing it or what to do about it.

So they madly veer from one party to the other in hopes of relieving their financial insecurity.

If Democrats would focus on jobs, and raising wages up to what they should be based on productivity gains, they'd never lose another election . . .

[elleng]

28. I think you're right, but I'm sad 'cause of what we have to live thru,

and not just you and me, also in Maryland, retired and not too much affected by 'economy,' but the likely lack of improvement, economy-wide, over the next 2+ years. For example, think about effect on newly proposed infrastructure initiative, a real stimulus, imo.

[kentuck]

29. I think it was more about how the 9.6 unemployment was handled?

Or not handled?

[Uzybone]

32. Bottom line...you are correct.

[4lbs]

35. Heck, here in CA the unemployment rate is about 12% and still nearly all the Democratic

candidates won, especially the ones up for re-election.

Boxer won by 10 points over Fiorina
Brown won by 13 points over Meg Whitman

The major state offices are almost entirely Democratic and the state legislature is about 65% Democratic.

My * PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL * U.S. Rep, Bob Filner, easily won re-election by 18 points.

Nancy Pelosi got 80% of the votes in her district.

Jane Harman, Maxine Waters, the Sanchez sisters, Lynne Woolsey, Henry Waxman, all Democratic and mostly liberal, also won re-election.

So, even in a really bad year for the "Democratic" brand, and high state unemployment, the big "D" won a lot of things in California.

[TZ]

37. I've noticed that traditionally blue/Democratic states like CA/MA/MD

stayed solidly that way and states that had been red/republican in the past like VA, NC, etc returned there...

[MadMaddie]

36. Yes it is

However; that is not the only thing.

It is also about the lack of critical thinking in this country.

It is about the fact the Democratic Party failed to point the finger at Republicans for stopping critical legislation from coming to the floor.

It is about the fact that there was no action by Kaine and other leaders to point out the actual numbers of the exportation of jobs.

Foreign countries wanted the Repugs to win because their entire economies are based upon our exported jobs. Why the hell didn't the Dems capitalize on this?

I am not sad either because they will reap what they sow...