Let me sum up the stump speech of nearly every Republican challenger during the 2010 election campaign: “He voted for the stimulus package. He voted for cap and trade. He voted for Obamacare.”
Sure, this formula doesn’t apply perfectly to all of the 53 or so incumbent House Democrats who lost re-election last Tuesday, pending a few recounts. Some of them voted for only one or two of the three. But Republican candidates’ strategy was to talk about those votes — ad nauseam — and also about each Democratic incumbent’s propensity to vote with progressive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
There is a lesson to be learned from the fact that these tactics worked so well, but progressives aren’t learning it and apparently don’t want to. They look at the map and see how many “moderates” lost, and conclude that the moderates are to blame for the Democrats’ demise.
That’s a great theory, until you look at which Democrats lost:
Thirty-six of the 53 incumbent House Democrats who appear to have lost in last Tuesday’s election — two-thirds of them — voted for President Obama’s health care reform package. Four others ran for Senate seats and lost.
Thirty-three of the 53 losing Democrats voted for cap and trade, including several who were clearly voting against their coal-producing districts’ interests (think Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.).
If you collate those two lists of Democratic losers, you account for 42 of the 53. If you include Obama’s stimulus package, you get to 50.
Only three House Democrats voted against all three bills. They all lost (in heavily Republican districts), and progressives are using this fact as an excuse to ignore the lesson of the other 50 races.
By forcing vote after vote on “progressive” priorities — an expensive Keynesian stimulus package, limitations on carbon emissions, Obamacare — Pelosi made every Democrat with a reasonably competitive district walk the plank.
Now that nearly everyone in the party to Pelosi’s right has become shark bait, the progressives point their enlightened fingers toward the red waves and blame the moderates for their own demise.
Progressives will say that of the 78 House members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, only three lost on Tuesday. What they won’t mention is those three losers were the only progressive caucus members from competitive districts. (That actually overstates the case, because Rep. Phil Hare’s Illinois district is not competitive, and he lost it anyway.)
The liberals won’t mention that even progressive stars with heavily Democratic districts came within a few thousand votes of losing: Dennis Kucinich (53 percent of the vote), Raul Grijalva (49.4 percent), Maurice Hinchey (52.4 percent), Peter DeFazio (53.6 percent), Loretta Sanchez (52 percent).
They won’t mention that progressive nominees lost in every single competitive open-seat House race.
Why did Democrats lose? Maybe it’s because the voters, even if they are willing to elect Democrats at times, reject progressive policies. Maybe it’s because only 20 percent of Americans identify themselves as liberals, while twice as many identify as conservatives.
But a discussion like that requires more introspection than most progressives seem able to muster right now. It can’t be that — it has to be a “messaging problem!” It has to be that evil corporations bought the election! It has to be Karl Rove! Rahm Emanuel! Halliburton! Fox News!
Some people call this “epistemic closure.”
And that’s why Pelosi, who has made possible the largest Republican House majority since 1946, will not only continue to lead her party, but will receive no serious challenge for the top position.
Just think: The 2012 cycle is already here, and Republicans won’t have to make a single new political ad.
David Freddoso is The Examiner’s online opinion editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
