11/6/18
A little election night quarterbacking…in no particular
order…
- I was flabbergasted by the shellacking the GOP took in the House. As readers know, I thought they’d retain the House comfortably. (TUESDAY’SMID-TERMS—GOP HOLDS THE HOUSE SOMEWHAT COMFORTABLY AND PICKS UP 4 IN THE SENATE, 11/4/18) It was looking bad enough for the Republicans pretty much from the get-go, but when the GOP lost in my district (Illinois 6), a district gerrymandered by Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan to be a GOP district, things got really dark really fast for the GOP. The Republicans look to lose at least two and probably three House seats in Illinois; while there might not have been a blue wave nationwide, there was, to use a cutesy-pie term making its way around political junkiedom of late, a bluenami in Illinois. That the Republicans got blown out in state races in Illinois didn’t surprise me and that made me slightly uncomfortable in counting on the GOP’s holding all of its national House seats in the Land of Lincoln in making my House prediction. Rather than making me uncomfortable, it should have made me more logical; how could the Republicans lose every constitutional office in Illinois but hold onto all its House seats? That’s nearly impossible and yours truly should have seen it.
·
I told my students this morning that if either Peter Roskam lost his House seat in
Illinois or Ted Cruz lost his senate
seat in Texas, the GOP would be in deep trouble. Roskam lost, Cruz barely held on. The GOP was in trouble, though probably not
deep trouble; it did pick up a few Senate seats, as I, and just about everyone
else, predicted. So the Roskam/Cruz indicator seemed to work
out.
·
There are people who love President Trump and people who hate Donald Trump. More people hate Donald Trump and almost all
of them REALLY hate Donald Trump. Fewer
love Donald Trump, and even fewer of those REALLY love Donald Trump. But President Trump doesn’t seem to realize
this.
·
More important than the last bullet point, there
are fewer people voting for Mr. Trump or his perceived surrogates but not
admitting it in polite, or any, company.
This was the vote that won the election in 2016 for Mr. Trump.
·
A friend asked me last week why the Republicans
didn’t run solely on the economy. I
agreed that that would be the best strategy.
The Republicans didn’t, though, and the consequences were
predictable. The GOP’s failing to run on
the economy was partially due to a very good Democratic campaign that forced
the Republicans to talk about things like health
care. (See below.) But mostly it was
due to Mr. Trump’s insistence on running on ancillary items. Bill
Clinton was, and probably remains, smart enough to know that “It’s the
economy, stupid.” Donald Trump isn’t.
·
Those “ancillary items” referred to in the last
bullet point fired up the base but only added to the GOP travails among the
swing voters in the suburbs and especially among women in the suburbs. Not to beat on a dead horse, but if a guy as
inoffensive as Peter Roskam can lose in a district designed for a Republican to
win because his opponent successfully tied Mr. Roskam to Donald Trump, things
look bad for the GOP as long as it is led by President Trump.
·
Lest I get too carried away with the last bullet
point, the results in the House are not out of line with historic results in
the mid-term after a new president takes office. Still, Republicans should feel worse about tonight
than the raw numbers would indicate.
And Illinois Republicans should feel awful, especially about the future
of our state.
·
One item that is neither ancillary nor
exclusively on the economy is health care and it is probably an even bigger
issue than most people think. Until the
GOP explains, convincingly, how whatever replacement it comes up with for the
ACA will protect people with pre-existing
conditions, this will continue to be a huge positive issue for the
Democrats.
·
The biggest winner for the Democrats tonight was
one of their losers…Beto O’Rourke of Texas.
His campaign for president starts as you read this.
·
In the Illinois 3rd Congressional
District, Arthur Jones, an avowed
neo-Nazi who through subterfuge and the apathy of the GOP establishment ran
unopposed for the Republican nomination, managed to get about one quarter of
the vote in the general against Dan
Lipinski. That an avowed neo-Nazi could get over 55,000 votes in
a district split between neighborhoods on Chicago's southwest side and the city's near southwest suburbs is a travesty.
No, it doesn’t mean that there are 55,000 neo-Nazis or fellow travelers
in the district, but it does mean that there are 55,000 people who are so
obtuse and so insouciant about their franchise that they didn’t take the time
or make the effort to learn that they were voting for an open and proud white
supremacist, anti-Semitic Holocaust denier.
This is the most frightening thing to come out of tonight’s results.
·
Sometimes the conventional wisdom is right. Tonight was one of those nights; as most
people predicted, the GOP lost the House and retained the Senate. Hence this was not a great night for those who
enjoy thumbing their noses at the conventional wisdom…like yours truly.
Onward and upward, ladies and gentlemen…I hope.
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