A week past the midterms, the good news gets better, so far as the GOP is concerned.
» President Obama (so far) doesn’t get it. His presser was gruesome. He is being called isolated, inept and incompetent. Staffers are dishing, backers are kvetching, and even the glossies have turned.
Conde Nast may be still in full drool mode, but Esquire says that his “aura” has vanished. Obama sans aura is Samson sans hair.
» Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is back! Pelosi, who led her caucus into calamitous losses, is not going quietly, but wants the chance to repeat the experience. The woman with an approval rating of 8 percent among independents, the poster girl for excess and for arrogance, wants once again to be a face of the national Democrats.
‘Hire Pelosi!’ reads the banner out the RNC’s offices. And speaking of faces …
» Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is back, too! Republicans wanted so much to bag him, but on second thought, realize they lucked out. They get to keep him, with his charm, charisma, and leaderly qualities, avoid having Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to deal with, and keep intact the leadership team that just did so well in the midterm election.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi together again, all of them bursting with warmth, common sense and their magic rapport with middle America. As someone said once, ‘Bring it on!’
» The Tea Party worked out, on balance, and at least in contrast to what might have been. It did not, as predicted, embarrass its allies.
It countered the baseless charges of nativism et al. by fielding a rich crop of star and diversity candidates, including two blacks for Congress, two Hispanics for governor, one Hispanic for senator (and possibly president), one Indian-American for governor to go with the GOP’s other Indian governor, from yet another deep Southern state.
True, it coughed up a couple of clunkers, but these were mercifully vetoed by voters before they could became large-scale, ongoing embarrassments. These cost the GOP its chance for control of the Senate, but this too can be a good thing.
» The Democrats still have control of the Senate, but by six seats instead of 19 or 20, which is where their problems begin. Democrats avoided a deeper disaster because this was the best cycle of all for their candidates, while the one next in line is their worst.
In 2012, 13 Democrats, from the wave election of 2006 and purple states that went red just a week ago, will be up for election and they will be very afraid. Sen.-elect Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who won when he ran against health care and put an actual bullet through cap and trade legislation, is not likely to back an Obama agenda.
Conservatives may end up with an operational majority while Democrats have responsibility without power, leaving Obama unable to campaign like Truman and run against Congress.
Well, he can, but with one house, he’ll look pretty silly. Not that this often stops people, of course.
» Balance is all. Since l968, there have been only 10 years when one party controlled both the presidency and both chambers of Congress: 1977-1980; 1993-1994; 2005-2006, and 2009-2010.
In no case did the public like what it saw, and it rectified matters as quickly as possible. A public that might be reluctant to vote for a Republican president when that party was in control of both houses might be less so if it only held one of them.
The chances for unseating Obama just ticked up a few notches more.
Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
