The Sad Morning After

It's time to wake up. It's the morning after. It's time to wipe away the salty residue of tears on our cheeks remaining after Tuesday night. It's time to rinse our mouths of the remnants of nuts, chips and dip hastily consumed in nervous anticipation of election results. It's time to lift our heads and face the puffy eyes of sorrow as we gaze, sleepy and semi-conscious, into the mirror. The time for self-pity is over. It's time to face the results of November 3 and plan for the future.

The bad news for Republicans is that in many respects the election was a vote of no confidence for a public largely exhausted by the issues surrounding possible presidential perjury and obstruction of justice with regard to the Monica Lewinsky affair. It will be difficult for Republicans and virtually impossible for Democrats to now meet their constitutional responsibilities with regard to impeachment. In a curious way, the fact that the election had no real salient issues besides Lewinsky is the good news as well. There was little appetite for large increases in the size and intrusiveness of government. Republicans can take heart.

The electorate is content with the state of the economy and personal prospects. This election was an endorsement of the status quo. Usually such an attitude helps the incumbent party. The public, however, perceives that pursuit of impeachment is likely to alter the status quo. So in this upside down election year, the majority party was seen as the likeliest source of unwanted change and instability.

Republicans began Wednesday with the same number of Senators and nearly the same number of Governors that they began Tuesday. Loosing five seats in Congress is consequential only because a positive pickup was anticipated and a slim majority became even slimmer. All in all, it was a significant set back, but not a catastrophe. There are pockets of encouraging news. In Washington State, not a particularly Conservative place, the voters chose to eliminate racial preferences by an 18% margin despite the fact that supporters of the initiative were dramatically outspent. Although bans on partial-birth abortions were defeated, a requirement for parental notification won.

Now that Newt Gingrich has resigned as Speaker of the House, Republicans have an opportunity to begin anew. Gingrich was a passionate, compulsive, and controversial talker better suited to the revolution he lead than governing. The 1994 mid-term elections, when Republicans took over Congress, was the apex of Gingrich's career. The following Christmas, one month later, saw Newt on the cover of Time and Newsweek with the not so subtle suggestion that Gingrich would be the Grinch who stole Christmas. He never lived down this unfair first impression.

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