In a previous blog post, I discussed the election results for Hawaii.
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html#1592160011337005645
Now, I'll analyze the election results for the rest of the nation
1) Back when Obama was inaugurated in Jan 2009, people were talking about a "permanent Democrat majority". They were talking about the rise of the non-white vote, and the large support the younger generation gave to Barack Obama's election. Meanwhile, John McCain had the support of the older voters, and a rural European-American Christian vote that has been gradually loosing their influence. So it was understandable that a "permanent Democrat majority" was the "wave of the future"
Well, not so fast!
As it usually happens, once a president is in office, that person will be making decisions that will alienate former supporters! Governing is different from campaigning. Campaigns are all about marketing. Governing takes action.
The decisions a president make will eventually overshadow the magic of an exciting campaign.
So, yes Obama's popularity has been declining.
While some say race is a factor! But Obama was already racially part-African, part-European when he won the election. That hasn't changed since!
So what happened?
Well, the recession is still on-going! Sure, some economists say the worst is over! But many are still unemployed! Many are finding that job opportunities that match their talents and skills are harder to come by! Come election time, people will take it out on the party in power.
In 1982, Ronald Reagan was half-way his 1st term in office. But the recession that started in Jimmy Carter's presidency still hadn't ended! So many people who voted Reagan in 1980, out of recession anger at Carter, were in 1982, taking it out on Reagan's Republican allies in Congress.
Not much different these days. In 2008, the markets crashed, Republicans were in power, so the people voted Democrat! In 2010, they felt Democrats haven't solved the problem, so they voted Republican.
But of course, there's more! There's a cap & trade bill that Obama supported but didn't get through Congress. It was for more taxes on fossil fuels. Obviously, no one wants to pay more taxes in a recession.
There's health reform and immigration reform as well. Those will discussed in more detail.
2) Health Reform.
I remember a few years back when John Stossell, who was still at ABC News, had an editorial documentary called "Sick in America" that discussed the dangers of government-run health care! Usually, most news reports imply that government take more control of our health care system. It was a rarity for non-Fox TV when Stossel discussed some of the negative things that happen when government interfere too much!
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3580676&page=1 ( an written outline of that special)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3MtjMBWx4
(the 1st of 6 YouTube clips from Stossel's documentary, just click on the other clips from that special when you're done with this one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw3KM9ZzFEE (part 2 of 6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPwkwc9aE-M (part 3 of 6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOk7lwBmvSw (part 4 of 6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCqXomvWd8 (part 5 of 6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCqXomvWd8 (part 6 of 6)
Stossell mentioned how socialized medical care systems don't live up to they hype in nations like Canada and the United Kingdom. It mentions how a government monopoly on health care in those countries has disastrous results, stuff that many left-wing liberals ignore in their quest for a more socialist system.
Sure, watching that special made me think "hey, now more people will realize what happens when government interferes too much with health care". But then pessimism took over, with me thinking "not enough people saw that documentary, people will still demand more government control, without even considering what negative consequences come with too much government interference".
But looking back, that Stossell special had some real impact.
When Obama started proposing his health care reform, people actually had townhall meeting protesting excessive government interference in our health care system. That is something I never thought I would see happen so soon in my life-time. Usually, people protest for more government control of our health care system. There is now a mass movement of people who realize that sometimes, government interferences does more harm than good. It was finally, there's a pro-capitalist protest movement, rather than just pro-union solidarity movements.
Many left-wing liberals were in denial when they first saw townhall meeting with protesters who didn't buy the hype of left-wing slogans like "universal health care", "single-payer health care", etc.
They claimed these protesters were just mad that their new president is African-American. But there are some African-American editorial writers like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder and Star Parker had some legit criticisms of Obama's health care reforms. They were ignored by left-wing pundits and Democrat politicians.
The left-wing liberals made a HUGE mistake in ridiculing the legit concerns about the Obama's health care proposals. They made a HUGE mistake in not understanding that there's now many people who no longer buy the hype of "universal health care", "single-payer health care", etc.
They also made a HUGE mistake in under-estimated the people's understanding that Obama's health care proposals would require higher taxes to pay for it, and that raising taxes would be the worst thing to do in a recession!
What the public really wanted was the economy to grow again, for the private sector to grow again. That way, they'll be employed and less likely to need help from the government to pay for their health care! People want to be independent and be able to pay for their own health care. Most of them view government assistance as something as a last resort, whereas far-left liberals tend to see government assistance and government take-overs of the private sector as something to be done as the first resort!
The Far-Left liberals paid a price for ignoring such concerns. Republicans viewed it as an opportunity to move on from the Bush-era, and capitalized on it!
3) Immigration
The gang wars over drug turf in Mexico, and a few crimes on the border got some people scared about immigration. A murder of a farmer by Mexican illegal aliens in Arizona inspired Arizona governor Jan Brewer to make a controversial anti-immigration law.
It didn't matter to some that border cities like San Diego and El Paso were among the safest cities in the US! It didn't matter to some that crime was already going down in Arizona over the last few years. It didn't matter to some that the border areas are nowhere as dangerous as cities far from the border like Detroit, Newark, Camden or New Orleans. Learn more at
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html#5969634862924242439
http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/22/how-immigration-crackdowns-bac
All that mattered to some was some brown-skinned guys with strange accents were crossing the border and they seemed scary!
Whereas George W Bush attempted to make the Republican Party more immigration-friendly (this has been ignored by many far-left liberals), other Republicans wanted to cling to their older, whiter conservative base and felt scaring them with exaggarated stories of illegal alien crime was the way to go!
Well, this had some mixed results. Anti-immigration candidates won some and lost some.
Jan Brewer had managed to win, even though her stories about illegal aliens beheading people were exaggaratted! After her Democrat opponent mentioned during the debate that her stories were phony, Brewer refused to get into any more debates and was evasive when asked by reporters about her exaggarations.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/09/04/this_week_crazy_jan_brewer
But more than enough people were scared of illegal alien criminals to vote Brewer back into office.
But the anti-immigration fanaticism didn't work everywhere. In fact, it backfired in other states.
California was the center of immigration controversy back in 1994, when then governor Pete Wilson made fear-mongering ads showing Latino immigrants in a negative light! Yeah, Wilson might've won the battle that year, but in the long run, his GOP ended up losing the war! Wilson's ads and fear-mongering indirectly told many Latinos who were too lazy to vote, or too reluctant to finally take their citizenship exams, that they better get political. Ever since then, the Republicans had been loosing power in California. Their only major victory was when Austrian immigrant and political centrist Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger won a few elections for governor.
This year, GOP candidate for governor, Meg Whitman tried to play the fear-mongering game on immigration, but it turned out her housekeeper was an illegal alien.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20018062-503544.html
Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate for governor, Jerry Brown, did something very rare in politics. He openly defended the contributions that many illegal immigrants have made to California's society. He openly demanded that these people be treated like human beings. Usually, politicians avoid saying things like that, because they are afraid of vicious sarcastic mockery from anti-immigration fanatics like Michelle Maglalang Malkin! But Brown didn't back down, and he was rewarded with victory!
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In Nevada, there was the US Senate race between Harry Reid and Sharon Angle. Harry Reid was the Democrat incumbent who was seen as a stereotypical politician who been in DC for too long. His support of Obama's health care policies were seen as too socialist, too tax-friendly in a semi-libertarian state. His seniority in Congrees sure didn't help Nevada's economy, which was in one of the worst shapes among all states. It should've been easy to get rid of him this year.
But Sharon Angle tried Jan Brewer's strategy with fear-mongering ads claiming that illegal aliens were joining criminal gangs and ready to ruin America.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/10/26/spin_season_joy_behar_sharron_angle/index.html
The visual imagery of that ad showed European-Americans in a positive light, whereas Latinos were only shown in a negative light. It gave off the vibe that Mexicans were only about joining gangs, scamming the welfare system and only up to no good.
To make her situation worse, Angle was shown telling Mexican-American teens that they "looked Asian", a lame attempt at humor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PHC3SxDmCU
Well, Sharon Angle lost to what was supposed to be a very vulnerable Harry Reid. Now, this wasn't a major repudiation of Republicans in general, since Nevada elected a Latino Republican Sandoval as governor.
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In Colorado, anti-immigration fanatic Tom Tancredo attempted to run for governor. Again, just like in California, this has gotten Latinos who were previously too lazy to vote, to actually go out and vote. The Democrats saw opportunity, and ride the Latino anger to victory
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Back to Arizona, Jan Brewer might've won her battle this year. But as the results from California, Nevada and Colorado showed, her allies will eventually loose the war!
It's just like the civil rights era! Guys like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond acted all "big and bad" claiming to speak for the majority. But history has showed that despite winning some battles, in the long run, the segregationists lost the war! Expect the same to happen for immigration!
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One more thing, on this immigration issue, some anti-immigration fanatics say stuff like "too many Latinos depend on government services, they'll never vote Republican even if Republicans are pro-immigration" Those people are missing the point! Yes, there are Latinos who depend on welfare, who rely on government services to the poor, or are just economic liberals. And yes, that will put many in the Democrat camp.
But the Republicans don't need 51% of the Latino vote to win statewide elections. But they're not going to win many elections with just 1% of the Latino vote either! Bush won in 2004, with 45% of the Latino vote. In 2008, McCain (who was up against the "we'll finally have a 1st minority president" mentality), got 35% of the Latino vote. Notice that while Bush didn't need a majority of Latino voters to win re-election, but he would NOT have won had he got less than 1/3 of the Latino vote!
While Bush isn't the most popular guy right now, the GOP could learn from Bush's success with getting more Latino voters than the average Republican. Or as the new Senator from Florida Marc Rubio said Republicans “should be the pro-legal immigration party, not the anti-illegal immigration party.”
4) Mama Grizzlies
There was also talk about the rise of the "mama grizzlies", which is what Sarah Palin called her female conservative allies!
In the past 30 years, the Republicans had more male support, Democrats had more female support! Now, the talk was that more women were supporting the Republican party.
Well, the "mama grizzlies" won some and lost some.
Nikki Haley, who was of Indian ancestry, won the governor's seat in South Carolina. Her and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal's victories have helped the South move beyond its white supremacist past!
Michelle Bachmann continued to be the US Representative from Minnesota, and a powerful voice of the conservative tea-party movement.
However, some of the others failed. Some of it was because they took the anti-immigration fanaticism too far (ie. the already mentioned Meg Whitman, Sharon Angle).
Others failed for different reasons.
Linda McMahon, the wife of WWE's owner Jim McMahon, was running for US Senator from Connecticut! However, serious allegations of abuse and exploitation of WWE employees had made voters nervous of McMahon. It was so bad, that people rather vote for Dick Blumenthal, who wasn't an appealing candidate due to his lies about his service in the Vietnam War.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/155099/linda-mcmahons-body-count
Then there was Christine O'Donnell, who was running for US Senator from Delaware. She was an easy target for comedians, due to her past experimentations with witchcraft, and her statements against masturbation. But more importantly, she defaulted on her mortgages! In a year when people were concerned about politicians who can't balance the government's budget, they didn't want one who couldn't balance her own personal budget.
5) Marijuana legalization attempt in Cali
While Federal law bans all use of marijuana, 16 states plus D.C. defied federal law and legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Some activists in California wanted to take it a step further, and legalize marijuana the same way alcohol is legalized, meaning, anyone over 21 be allowed to use!
Their proposals became Proposition 19, in which California voters could vote whether to legalize marijuana for all those over 21 years old!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19_(2010)
But the fear-mongering over the "consequences" of legal marijuana have led to the defeat of Prop 19! Actually, Prop 19 got the majority of support from the young adult voters! It is the older voters that voted against that law!
The federal agents said they'll still enforce anti-marijuana laws. Barack Obama, who admitted to smoking weed while in high school, is in a tough political territory. His most passionate supporters in 2008 were the young adults (most likely to support Prop 19) and I'm thinking a part of him agrees with them on this issue! However, I think he sincerely fears losing many older voters if he moves too fast in legalizing marijuana!
AS the medical use of marijuana become more mainstream, and more people realize that marijuana isn't as dangerous as cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, or (already legal) alcohol. A time will come when marijuana will eventually be legalized for all adults.
And yes I do think alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. Hear it from a doctor who work with patients on drug rehab at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703414504575001192775584982.html
But the penalties for being "driving while high", or "high while on the job" will have to increase in order for people to be comfortable with legalized marijuana!
6) Conclusion
Now that the Republicans gain strength in Congress, the big question is will they actually reduce government spending, the deficit and the national debt.
But cutting the government's budget will be a hard thing to attempt! People talk about "cutting abuse, waste and fraud" government.
But the federal government's budget is largely Military, Social Security and Medicare!
Most politicians don't really want to reduce military spending, because most politicans don't want to be accussed of "putting national security at risk"! We could withdraw from bases in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, but most politicians don't want to be accussed of "abandoning our allies".
Most politicians don't really want to reduce spening on Social Security and Medicare, because most politicians don't want to be accussed of "starving and neglecting senior citizens or the disabled"
The politicians who talk about reducing the government's deficit will have to make some hard decisions. Talk is no longer enough!
