It was an election about nothing, an election to determine the outcome of an issue — impeachment — about which few candidates had anything to say: That verdict has been voiced repeatedly over the last few weeks. But in fact, like most elections, this one was partly about government. And not so much the federal government in Washington, where deadlock between the parties seems likely to continue, as government at the state level, where real changes have been wrought in the 1990s, changes measured in lower taxes, shorter welfare rolls, and decreased crime.
These changes are wildly popular. Analysts attribute voters’ positive attitudes about the direction of the nation and most politicians to the economy; and surely that is one factor. But welfare and crime are important, too. And they have been declining as steeply as they increased in the awful decade between 1965 and 1975, when welfare rolls and crime tripled. In the last five years, both have been cut by about one-third. These cuts have been almost entirely the work of state and local officials, mostly Republicans.
