Congratulations to John Boehner, whose efforts have led to the GOP control of the House. With over fifty seats taken last night, it was certainly his leadership which helped achieve such an uplifting victory for the GOP. We now have an opportunity to repeal Obamacare, return the Bush-era tax cuts to permanent status, and showcase some fiscal discipline to the Executive Branch.
Take a look at the governor’s map and you’ll see it has a red glow about it. The GOP has won so many gubernatorial elections, I’ve lost count. This is a great testament to the voters who wanted some additional constraints on spending and taxes at the local level. (Although, on the sour side, Meg Whitman disappointed me by going off-message early and often).
But, what happened at the senate level is an indication of where the GOP needs to work. Too many candidates were thrown into races where their un-electability was painful to watch. Others were thrown off message and decided to take on social issues which were less important than economic and health care issues. New York, Delaware, Connecticut and Nevada are examples of the former while Colorado and California are the latter. While the concepts behind the tea party’s economic platform are laudable, those ideas became secondary to the trainwreck campaign of Ms. O’Donnell in Delaware and the off-base social musings of Mr. Buck in Colorado. Both deserved to lose, and did.
The Republican Senate should take a page from the Rand Paul playbook, who stayed on message despite many attempts by his opponent to draw him off-message. He proves that a tea party backed candidate with some good political instincts can be extremely popular and successful at the ballot box. Is it too early to place him in the Senate leadership?
