The Right State

It has only been a couple of days, but I think it is time to go back and look at what went wrong for the Republican Party in the midterm election. The problem with doing this is that sometimes we may engage in what is called ‘the illusion of retrospective determination.’ For example many people look at the Civil War and conclude the war was over slavery. There was slavery before the war, there was no slavery afterwards; therefore the Civil War was over slavery. This kind of thinking is extremely short-sighted. Unfortunately the MSM and the Democratic Party are engaging in the same practice immediately following the election results. They harped on the War in Iraq over and over again, they won the election; therefore they won because of their stance on the War in Iraq. The evidence does not support this thesis.

A Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll came out right before the election that gave me a lot of trouble the day before the election, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

11. – 20. How important will each of the following issues be to your vote for Congress? (RANDOMIZE)

SCALE: 1. Extremely important 2. Very important 3. Somewhat important 4. Not at all important 5. (Don’t know)

***** SUMMARY CHART *****

Extremely Important

Iraq 35%

Terrorism 33%

The economy 32%

Political corruption 29%

Moral values 29%

Taxes 26%

Immigration 22%

Gas prices 22%

North Korea 19%

Kerry’s comment 11%

There is one important fact in this poll taken right before the election is that nothing stands out—absolutely nothing. Iraq, terrorism, the economy, political corruption, moral values, and taxes are all within ten points of each other. Its not that the American people thought all of these things were equally important, it’s that they just wanted a change, but they did not know exactly where.

The Democrats thought they were being clever when they came out with no agenda except change. By blind luck, it happened to be the very thing the voters wanted. The Dems did not want to be nailed down to a stance that the voters did not like and so they rode the middle and safe ground by calling for ‘change.’ Interestingly enough, history is on the side of the Democrats on this election. In the midterm election of a President’s second term, his party loses an average of 30 seats in the House and 6 six in the Senate. The American people wanted change, any kind of change. The Democrats promised it and the Republicans promised—stay the course, the one thing Americans did not want.

Earlier in the year, the President Bush appointed Tony Snow as his Press Secretary. The polls bumped up a bit and then went back down. There was a slight change but the change was window dressing, the same agenda in a different package. If the George Bush had replaced Donald Rumsfeld six months ago, the change might have been enough to keep a couple of House and Senate seats in the hands of the Republicans. Replacing him immediately after the elections just adds to the speculation that the Democrats were right for criticizing the war. And so they all march around on television claiming the American people have spoken and given them a mandate—get out of Iraq. Unfortunately this is not what the people were saying, they gave the Dems a mandate alright, but a mandate for change which is a little more open to interpretation.

The trouble with the illusion of retrospective determination is that a fallacy like this one is so hard to overcome. Proof in these kinds of things are very hard to find. Also lost in this debate is that fact that for the last few years, the Republican Party has lost its roots. They have been spending money like they were Democrats. If the Republicans had stood on principal, with spending,immigration, up or down votes on judges, it is possible another few more seats might have remained safe.

But even with all this speculation on what the Republican Party might have done to keep the House and Senate, they still ran into the buzz-saw called history. History was not with the party in power in the President’s second term. People wanted change after six years of Republican rule. And that is what they voted for, not a retreat from Iraq.

John Hawkins on Right Wing News has a very good list of what Republicans need to be to ‘act like Republicans.’

Tags: National Elections //