What the Elections Mean

The Republican rout in Virginia and the shocking Republican win in NJ means that the Obama magic is officially over. It's become clear that the alleged Obama charisma was more a chimera and that the glow he emanated was just a back reflection of his supporters own sanctimony. But this pretty much makes it official - the guy is a bore personally and his natural inclination technocrat over leader. The MSM is struggling to maintain the myth - thus the Washington Post vainly tries to portray his lackluster foreign policy performance as the inner-community-organizer at work (like there's any evidence he was any good at that, either). And the Times features "The First Marriage" on its magazine cover in a desperate effort to spice up the brand, to no avail (more on this anon). So now it's down to plain old politics, which is good.

But not necessarily for Republicans. What this election does not tell us is that Republicans are back. They still have little to offer the breadth of the electorate. They were in charge more or less for eight years and only managed to accomplish the near destruction of the U.S. economy and our influence abroad. Right now they pretty much have to do their best to sabotage the Democrat's health care push - there's no choice there. But they've yet to come up with anything to grab voters' attention.

Elliot Spitzer has given them a hint how to proceed:

break up the banks. Imagine this: by next spring, an intellectual consensus will have emerged that the concentration in the banking sector that developed from the 1980s until the crash of ‘08 was misguided...A few brave souls on the Right — recognizing that the Republican Party has been bereft of ideas in its attacks on President Obama — will then try to re-define a populist, conservative attack by asserting that the White House has been captured by Wall Street. Real populism and change, they will argue, will come from the Republican, not the Democratic, party.

That is indeed the direction the Republicans must go if they want to grow their constituency. Rather than fretting over their share of the minority vote, they ought to be trying to expand it among the vast working class. They don't need to be pro-union to do this - not necessarily even anti-business. But they can't continue to be in the lap of large corporate interests. It will be tough, because that's where the money comes from. But they need to get back to emphasizing traditional family values - which is first and foremost about fathers being able to earn a decent wage for decent work, and being able to save money and find a good occupation for their kids without mortgaging their retirment on college. There are areas ripe for exploitation in the populist arena - they don't have to hang their hat on abortion to win the heartland.

But, alas, Republicans are too stupid - and too addicted to easy campaign cash - to even attempt it.