My First (Real) Blog

I would like to begin by thanking Joe and Mike for inviting me to participate in this forum. It is my hope that this endeavour will produce a better understanding of the issues for all of us and that we may all become more understanding and appreciative of the diverse opinions on ALL sides of the aisle.

With that, I begin my discussion--which I promise to try to keep brief.

First off, I cannot say I agree that this past election represents a landslide. Although the House of Representatives saw a major reversal of fortune for the Republicans, they did not give up a two-thirds majority to the Democrats. The other consideration is that the Democrats do not truly control the Senate. If Joe Lieberman returns to the Democratic party, they will still have achieved only 50 seats with the deciding vote (which everyone assumes) will come from the independant Vermont senator (who calls himself a socialist). Match these facts with an additional one that most of those newly elected Democrats are not liberal by any means--only by comparison to the Reagan neo-conservative strain still at the helm of the Republican Party--nor can many of them be described as progressive. The only real victory for the Democrats is the fact that senior members will take control of key posts from Republicans and begin to try to reverse many of the Bush administration's policies. Other than that minor victory (which if it is to remain a victory, they must succeed in improving the social and political discourse in this country) the Republican legacy since 1980 still lives on.

I completely agree with Joe when he writes about the problems of incumbancy. I believe the damage done to the Republicans in the House would have been greater if we did not have the incumbancy returns which we have (98%). Although I feel very strongly on this issue, I will leave it for another week's discussion.

Another point I wish to make is that although there are numerous issues that Americans complain out and would like to see ameliorated, the only major issues which they cared enough to vote for were Iraq and Iraq (secondarily, government corruption, but the impact of that issue was felt more regionally than nationally). Based on the exit polls I have seen, the biggest beef voters had with Iraq was that the Republicans showed no logical direction and they were no longer willing to allow them to lead us in prosecuting this war. They voted for the Democrats not because of any brilliant strategy for eventual withdrawal (not to be confused with cutting and running) but because they simply were not Republicans. Left with no other option (which I shall leave for a later discussion) they turned to the Democrats who talked of exiting Iraq asap and were not of the same mind as the Vice President ("full-speed ahead"). The burden for the Democrats in the immediate months ahead is to make good with their promise to bring direction to the course in Iraq (if such change is possible) and coalesce enough to develop a foreign policy which maintains their ideals.

Given these sentiments, I am not as optimistic as others are about the changeover in the legislative branch, yet I anxiously await the next two years hoping that some new policies arise which can give me hope.