The 2012 Election

When the polls opened this past Tuesday, the 2012 election began. It might have been called the 2010 midterm election, but it was really Round One in the 2012 election and it’s in nowise over.

While one Senate seat has not been determined (AK) by the election returns, six seats left the Democrats Tuesday and went over to the Republicans. The Republicans, by contrast, didn’t lose a single Senate seat. Republicans will have at least 47 seats going into 2012 – not a majority, but enough to filibuster and enough to force Reid into tough compromises.

Eight House seats have yet to be settled by the election, but at least 64 switched from Democrat to Republican. Only three seats switched from Republican to Democrat. The Republicans will have at least 240 seats (55%) next year.

Moreover, the Wicked Witch is dead. Pelosi’s Kool-Aid rule is over – forever. Usually, a Speaker who loses the House retires (the political equivalent of hari-kari). This one has decided she is so indispensable to the Democrat party that she wants to run for Minority Leader now. Maybe she can help them lose the 2012 election.

One governorship (IL) remains undecided by the election, but the Democrats so far have lost 11 gubernatorial seats versus the Republican loss of five – one of which went to a Republican-turned-Independent, Lincoln Chafee. The Republicans will have at least 28 governorships (54%) going into 2012, which along with state legislatures, will allow them to tear up state electoral maps across the country.

Republicans now control 54 state legislative chambers – taking control of at least 18 state chambers from Democrats – a net gain of at least 680 seats in state legislatures. Republican governors and state legislatures will redistrict electoral maps in their states next year to assure that they add between 15 and 25 Republican House seats through the redistricting process. Four chambers are still in play, but even if Republicans lose them all, the party will hold more state legislative seats until 2012 than it has filled since 1928.

That’s Round One. For a president seeking to mount a second term election, it’s hard to imagine a more difficult starting point. But Truman, Reagan, and Clinton saw disastrous midterm elections and came back for second terms. This midterm, however, seems different. The Republicans didn’t win; the Democrats lost – big time. As P.J. O’Rourke observed, this wasn’t an election; it was a restraining order.

At no time in the history of this country has the people’s government shown such utter contempt for them as in the last two years. Massive interventions in healthcare and “stimulus” spending ignored howls of opposition. American politics is always played to the left and right of midfield – never in the red zone as Obama and friends have done since his election. The election results were, therefore, the people’s verdict on two years’ of arrogant governance.

This election drove a stake in the heart of Obama’s leftist agenda to transform America into a European clone. His agenda can never be revived. Knowing better than ever that they must always face a local election, no future Congress will again ignore its constituents and rush over the cliff lemming-like in obedience to its congressional leaders. This instinct will be patent in the elections of 2012.

In 2012, Democrats will have to defend 23 additional seats in the Senate’s three-year staggered election cycle. Should they be worried? Eight of those seats are in trouble with constituents because of their shenanigans in the last two years: Bill Nelson (FL), McCaskill (MO), Tester (MT), Ben Nelson (NB), Conrad (ND), Brown (OH), Cantwell (WA), and Webb (VA). If they had been up for reelection this cycle against credible opponents, they would have likely lost – and they know it. Look for them to get busy with some serious fence-mending over the next two years.

To these eight can be added newly elected Joe Manchin (WV) who is only a placeholder for the seat of Robert Byrd until Byrd’s reelection cycle would have come up in 2012 had he lived. In the 2010 campaign, Manchin was often trailing his Republican challenger, despite his popularity as the now ex-governor, and he had to engage in lots of anti-Obama electioneering to convince the gun and bible-totin’ West Virginia hillbillies that he would be one of them in Washington. Obama’s “cap and trade” would put WV into bankruptcy, so Manchin’s electoral theatrics included shooting a rifle bullet through a copy of it.

We could add to that list of nine the four seats of Stabenow (MI), Klobuchar (MN), Menendez (NJ) and Bingaman (NM) who saw the other senatorial seat in their states shift to the Republicans last Tuesday. And then there is Herb Kohl (WI) who watched Russ Feingold get trounced and may decide at age 77 that he doesn’t need that grief and will therefore choose to retire.

Question: what happens when Reid comes skulking around in the search for votes on an issue opposed by the 14 states these senators represent? After the 2010 bloodletting, is he likely to get those votes? I don’t think soooooo. Having seen what happens to kamikazes, Reid will have a hard time imposing discipline on his caucus.

In contrast, McConnell need only remind Republicans who want to get along with Democrats by going along with their agenda that Bob Bennett and Mike Castle were punished in their primaries for straying too far into bipartisanland. There are ten Republicans who are up for reelection in 2012. RINOs (Republicans in name only) could find a Tea Party challenger in their 2012 primaries. So McConnell should find lots of votes from moderate 2012 Republicans and scared 2012 Democrats that give him majorities during the next two years. For example, if the House eviscerates ObamaCare, as it’s likely to do, and sends a bill to the Senate for reconciliation, the Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2012 might say, “Ah, you know what? Let Obama go on record by vetoing this so I can tell my constituents that I voted for it.” Round Two of the 2012 election has begun. McConnell will have more influence over the endangered Democrats than Reid will have.

Obama is going to have to face a new reality in legislating during the next two years. During his first two, he had absolute majorities in both houses and consequently an easy time of it. Vetoes weren’t necessary. Now he has two formidable opposition leaders in the House and Senate, and he is going to have to find a way to work with them. Neither McConnell nor Boehner is an exciting guy, so Obama’s proclivity for arrogance and talking down to people he feels intellectually superior to could be a real handicap in their working relationship.

If the White House thinks that this midterm is a replay of the 1994 midterm, which brought Gingrich and the Contract with America into conflict with Clinton, it will be mistake. Obama is no Clinton. He lacks Clinton’s political shrewdness and his ability to craft win/win deals. Obama understands only win/loss deals. Remember his classic comment at the disastrous Blair House summit last year – “I won” – meaning he didn’t have to negotiate.

Likewise Boehner is no Gingrich. He lacks Gingrich’s bright mind. But Boehner is also not as gaff-prone or self-destructive as Gingrich and therefore will be more difficult for Obama to maneuver into a corner. Boehner will stay on task, count votes, and raise money for the party – the mundane stuff of House leadership. He understands the mistakes of the Gingrich regime and won’t repeat them. Don’t look for him to threaten to shut down government or to let it happen. His message after Tuesday’s election lacked the messianic zeal of a Gingrich: "The new majority here in Congress will be the voice of the American people," Boehner said. "This is a time for us to roll up our sleeves and go to work on the people's priorities: creating jobs, cutting spending and reforming the way Congress does its business." Not a message that would bring a crowd to its feet, but ploddingly practical.

However, look for Boehner and McConnell to get the Democrats and Obama on the record on the hot button issues of the election – spending, taxes, healthcare, and government regulations. They will make a good tag team in forcing votes repeatedly in anticipation of the 2012 elections. The healthcare piñata will get swung at more than once during the next two years in order to force endangered Democrats to campaign on their votes against its repeal. If the Senate defers to Obama’s veto, then the president must campaign on his vote against reforming his hated healthcare law.

“We can’t expect the president to sign [healthcare repeal],” McConnell said this week. “We’ll also have to work in the House on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions.”

On tax cuts, if Republicans hold firm on cutting them for everybody (actually they only have to leave the rates where they are), they can force Obama and Senate Democrats facing re-election in 2012 to oppose an extension of tax rates for the middle class in order to punish the rich. Given the Hobson's choice, it’s likely that the Democrats will fold.

Spending bills originate in the House, and with their new majority, Republicans will find more maneuvering room to cut spending. Obama will be trapped in his “tax and spend” liberal image unless he works with the Republicans going into the 2012 election to scrub his awful spending record. Boehner doesn’t deserve to be Speaker if he can’t leverage Obama’s reelection aspirations into spending concessions to get outlays back to at least 2008 levels. If he does this, Boehner will renew the traditional Republican image of fiscal conservatism, which was tarnished mightily during the Bush years.

To that end Boehner must do two things to signal to conservative stakeholders that Republicans have learned from the errors of their ways during the Bush years. First, he must come down hard on the profligate spending that has afflicted Republicans in recent years. He should clean house on the Republican side of the House Appropriations Committee as a demonstration of his commitment to a new beginning on spending, appointing one of the “Young Guns” as the Chairman. This would show the Tea Party Republicans that the 112th Congress won’t be “business as usual.”

Second, Boehner pledged in a Friday Wall Street Journal editorial “no more earmarks.” Hallelujah! Voters showed their wrath and disgust with the Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase during the healthcare debate. “Bringing home the bacon” was raised to a new art form by Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Ted Stevens (R-AK). It is wasteful, silly, and out of touch with where the voters are with this spendthrift administration. Eric Cantor, one of the “Young Guns” and the presumptive House Majority Leader when Boehner becomes the Speaker, is passionately opposed to earmarks. Boehner could show his earmark resolve by appointing an earmark hawk like him to first or second chair in Appropriations.

Don’t expect Obama to fall into step with the Republicans in some new-found spirit of cooperation. Last week he said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. “Now that progress has been made,” Obama continued, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta’ have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta’ sit in back."

Strange that a man whose race suffered the indignities of sitting in the back of buses would use it to put down Republicans, unless doing so has a Freudian implication. What is really objectionable, the racial putdown notwithstanding, is Obama’s obvious ignorance of what elections are all about. Even if he dislikes having people disagree with him, which Obama obviously does (I won), he doesn’t get to say who can sit where on the public’s metaphorical bus; the people of the United States determine that. I predict, therefore, that Obama will struggle trying to find the right blend of conciliation and confrontation to assert his authority with this Congress on one hand, and yet navigate the congressional Scylla and Charybdis to avoid defeat in 2012 on the other.

Likewise, after four years in the wilderness, Republican leaders will not find it easy to resist flaunting their new-found power in a Congress dominated for the past four years by Reid-Pelosi’s congressional version of the Nine Circles of Hell. Last week McConnell said:

“Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending, and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.”

In addition to pledging a stop to earmarks, Boehner pledged in his Wall Street Journal editorial to post all bills online for three days before they are voted on (where have we heard that before?) but more importantly to include a clause in every bill citing where in the Constitution Congress is given the power to pass it. Bills that can't pass this test, Boehner said, shouldn't get a vote. Amen, brother, say on!

Boehner’s editorial further promised to “put an end to so-called comprehensive bills with thousands of pages of legislative text that make it easy to hide spending projects and job-killing policies.” The American people, he observed, are not well-served by "comprehensive" bills; the Speaker should insist on smaller, more focused legislation that is properly scrutinized by Congress and the public, constitutionally sound, and consistent with Americans' demand for a less-costly, less-intrusive government. I’m there!

Have I heard words like these from the conservative side of Congress before? Sho nuff, I have! I’m willing to give Boehner and McConnell the first six months of 2011 to prove they are selling a pony not the poop. After two years of the 111th Congress, that’s more time than I expect the American people will give them.

Going forward, I expect elections to be more about voting against actions – the seen – than voting for promises – the unseen. The leaders and the conservative members of Congress had best understand then that, no matter how popular they think their program is now, they are one election away from a humiliating defeat. Just look at where the Democrats are today versus two years ago. And – (big “and”) – no matter how badly a political party seems defeated today, it is one election away from an historical recall. Just look at where the Republicans are today versus two years ago.

Forewarned is forearmed.