Friday, January 22, 2010

KRAUTHAMMER: 1 (OR 3) IS INFINITELY GREATER THAN 36

Democrats lose one Senate seat (and a couple of governor's races, including one in a state that always elects a governor from whichever party is out of power in D.C.) ... and Charles Krauthammer describes it as a revolution:

You would think lefties could discern a proletarian vanguard when they see one. Yet they kept denying the reality of the rising opposition to Obama's social democratic agenda when summer turned to fall and Virginia and New Jersey turned Republican in the year's two gubernatorial elections.

... something is going on beyond personality.

That something is substance -- political ideas and legislative agendas....

"If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call," said moderate -- and sentient -- Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, "there's no hope of waking up."


Funny thing -- after Democrats picked up 30 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate in 2006, the K-Hammer was a tad more cautious in his rhetoric:

Only a Minor Earthquake

... But the great Democratic wave of 2006 is nothing remotely like the great structural change some are trumpeting. It was an event-driven election that produced the shift of power one would expect when a finely balanced electorate swings mildly one way or the other.

This is not realignment. As has been the case for decades, American politics continues to be fought between the 40-yard lines. The Europeans fight goal line to goal line, from socialist left to ultra-nationalist right. On the American political spectrum, these extremes are negligible. American elections are fought on much narrower ideological grounds. In this election the Democrats carried the ball from their own 45-yard line to the Republican 45-yard line.


So a "proletarian vanguard" is shaking pitchforks now, based on evidence from three states (and ignoring evidence from other elections), but the nationwide reaction to Bush and a GOP Congress in 2006 was just a tweak.

Well, I can't blame K-Ham for saying this -- the more it's repeated (and not refuted by Democrats), the more it's accepted as truth.

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