Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

Interpreting the 2006 Elections Results

David Horowitz offers the following analysis:

The elections were a victory for the political center; a vote against an incompetently run war; and an opportunistic spending orgy; and the corruption of a party grown complacent in power. Twenty-percent of the self-described conservatives who voted in the mid-term elections voted for Democrats. Forty-seven percent of the voters over all were moderates. (Hat tip to David Brooks)

James Webb who won a Democratic Senate seat in Virginia is a stand-up military veteran, a conservative who became disaffected with the way the war has been fought in Iraq. He will not be a comfort to the Ned Lamont-Cindy Sheehan crowd on the party’s leftwing.

For  America this can be a healthy result if it means a coming together on the war against the Islamic jihad. Patriotic Democrats who are critics of the war but defenders of their country will have to differentiate themselves from their anti-American left by shouldering the responsibilities of defense as a governing party.

But will this happen? That remains to be seen.

Update:  11/13/06 - For other analyses, see Charles Krauthammer, Alicia Colon, and Tony Perkins.

THE HORRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF A DEMOCRATIC CONTROLLED CONGRESS

Thomas Sowell spells it out by asking a series of questions:

. . . Do we really want Congressman Alcee L. Hastings, who was impeached as a federal judge and removed from the bench due to charges of accepting bribes, put in charge of a committee handling top-secret national intelligence?

Do we really want far-left Congressman Dennis Kucinich to be chairman of the subcommittee on national security?

This is the same Dennis Kucinich who once introduced a bill “to abolish all nuclear weapons,” who has refused to condemn Hezbollah terrorists,

Victor Davis Hanson on "Kerryism"

VDH offers astute comments on what he calls "Kerryism."   The whole piece is well worth reading.  Below are a few snippets.

On our educated soldiers:

Some of the brightest and most educated Americans are not only in the military, but veterans of Iraq. Two of the best educated minds I have met-Col. Bill Hix and Lt. Col. Chris Gibson, both Hoover Security Fellows-were both Iraqi veterans. What is striking about visiting Iraq is the wealth of talent there, from privates to generals. Without being gratuitously cruel, the problem of mediocrity is not

AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL ELITES -- TOTALLY OUT OF TOUCH

Here are perceptive words from Michael Ledeen on the alienation of the nation's elite from the thinking and values of ordinary Americans:

It [Sen. John Kerry's remarks belittling U.S. troops] underlines the near-total alienation of the American intellectual elite. I dare say that the leading news and editorial rooms, like the offices of the major universities, are full of people who quite agree with the notion that our troops are stupid and underprivileged. Each time one of our children ships out to the Middle East, we get condolence calls from friends and relatives. They simply cannot fathom it, it is so totally removed from their own experience and from their own narcissistic lives. They do not know uniformed people, they have only a totally misleading stereotype.

MICHAEL MEDVED: 8 REASONS WHY CONSERVATIVES NEED TO VOTE

Medved has written a compelling, must-read column.    His article explains, as the subtitle states,  "Why People of Conscience Can’t Afford to Facilitate a Leftist Victory."   Important reading!

ANOTHER REASON WHY SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES SHOULDN'T STAY AT HOME THIS ELECTION

Stanley Kurtz points out the folly of surrendering the courts to liberals if one doesn't get out and vote. 

Did you catch this little article, linked on Drudge, about what’s going to happen if the Democrats take back Congress? The president would face "Democratic demands that he offer ‘mainstream’ rather than ‘right wing’ judicial nominees if he wants them confirmed."

Need I say more? How on earth are conservative principles going to be substantively advanced by killing off the Republican congress? Are we interested in proving our political purity, or in actually advancing conservative principles? What happens if Justice Stevens, already well advanced in years, should have to step down sometime in the next two years? Conservatives will have thrown away the chance to take back the Supreme Court–surrendering success in a literally decades-long political project at the very last minute. This is madness.

Wake up social conservatives. Everything you care about is at stake right now. How can you even think about staying home with the Supreme Court on the line? How does it defend or advance the principles and practices you care about to destroy our chances of getting a genuinely conservative majority on the Supreme Court? Do we take our enthusiasm from the actions of politicians, or from our knowledge of the meaning and effects of our actions in the world?

POLLS - IS THE SAMPLING BROAD-BASED AND FAIR?

I've written on polls before [here] and today I see the need to do it again.   You gotta watch'em closely -- How are the questions phrased?   Who are the people being polled?, etc. etc.    Here is Kathryn Jean Lopez making an important point:

I've never been a math whiz, so I usually leave poll analysis to others, but take a look at  "Newsweek poll puts Democrats far ahead in Congress " — should anyone be shocked that Dems come out ahead when only 28 percent of your poll is made up of Republicans, and 35 percent Democrat, is it surprising that dems fare better? (Of those sampled, 282 identified themselves as Republicans, 349 as Democrats and 330 as Independents.)

WOULD DEMOCRATS BRING FRESH FACES TO WASHINGTON?

Tim Graham talks about a potential Democratic victory in the House:

Has anyone considered how the Democrats can present themselves as a vote for "change" when you consider the term-unlimited people that will chair the committees, as AP reviews it? John Dingell: first elected December of 1955.  That's almost pre-rock-and-roll.  John Conyers: first elected 1964.  Charles Rangel? 1970. Henry Waxman? 1974.  George Miller? 1974.  Fresh faces, anyone?

"60 Minutes," David Kuo, and "Faith-Based Initiatives"

David Kuo's appearance on "60 Minutes" last Sunday has stirred a good bit of interest and controversy.   "60 Minutes" introduced Kuo with these words:

David Kuo is an evangelical Christian and card-carrying member of the religious right, who got a job in the White House in the president’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He thought it was a dream-come-true: a chance to work for a president whose vision about compassionate conservatism would be matched with sweeping legislation to help the poor.

But Kuo says the so-called compassion agenda has fallen short of its promise and he blames President Bush for that in his new book.

As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, he also says the White House was a place that cynically used religion for political ends and that White House aides ridiculed the very Christian leaders who helped bring Mr. Bush to office.

In his book, Kuo wrote that White House staffers would roll their eyes at evangelicals, calling them "nuts" and "goofy."

Asked if that was really the attitude, Kuo tells Stahl, "Oh, absolutely. You name the important Christian leader and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places."

To those deeply upset by these "revelations," Jonah Goldberg over at NRO has some useful words.

Michael Novak Coins the Word "Hypocrats"

Michael Novak itemizes the ways in which Democrats behave like Hypocrats.  A few excerpts:

Being a Hypocrat means never having to recognize a moral fault — in oneself. . .

Most religious people, at least those who are serious about churchgoing, and who reflect on what their beliefs actually mean, try hard to cut individuals a lot of slack in mercy and forgiveness.  Yet the slack they cut is for individuals, not for principles. Conservative religious people tend to be faithful to principle, but nonjudgmental about individuals: “Forgive the sinner...etc.” They are not willing to cut slack about what is right and wrong.
 
Hypocrats do pretty much the reverse.  They are wholly flexible on principle, and merciless to individuals who get in their way — from gay men like Congressmen Foley (whom they would have treated differently, were he a Democrat) to a Hall-of-Fame wrestling coach from Illinois . . .

Sexual Views Divide American Politics

Rich Lowry over at National Review Online is a man pardonably skeptical over the Left's newfound concern for matters sexual.  He points out that

The great divide in our cultural politics continues to be sex. The cultural left considers sex all-important and not important at all. All-important because it is a crucial means of self-expression; not important because the when, where and how don’t matter so much (sex is sex so long as it’s consensual). The cultural right considers sex wonderful and dangerous. Wonderful because it is the ultimate consummation of love; dangerous because if it is not carefully circumscribed, it destroys individuals and cultures.   .   .   .

It would be a welcome development indeed if the Foley flap prompted a bipartisan turn toward the values of sexual probity.  It is sexual irresponsibility, in the form of out-of-wedlock childbearing, that is at the root of many of the country’s social ills.   But it’s not to be.   Foley will be wrung for partisan advantage and then forgotten, as the culture war rages on.

Jonah Goldberg offers some historical context to further underscore the political division in America over offensive sexual behavior.