Musing on…2006 Mid-term National Election

People have often asked me what I think about the democrats gaining the majority in both houses of Congress. My immediate response is: notice the difference? Still, I guess I should mention some things about this election that aren’t quite so flippant.

People have often asked me what I think about the democrats gaining the majority in both houses of Congress. My immediate response is: notice the difference? Still, I guess I should mention some things about this election that aren’t quite so flippant.

The first thing is that I’m glad it’s over. For about a month the landline in the house was ringing throughout the afternoon and evening with recorded messages, pollsters, and other sorts of electioneering annoyances. Now they are gone. (Isn’t it lovely how, when Congress passed the do not call list, they opted to exclude pollsters and political electioneering?)

Then, there were the ads. The attack ads. Honestly, were there any ads out there that weren’t attack ads? Ugh. It got to the point where I didn’t want any of the candidates to win…clearly they were all slimy.

It certainly didn’t help that I was in the district with one of the more closely-watched contests. Me? I was torn. I wanted the republican candidate to lose as she’s been a lap dog (and never responds to my letters). On the other hand, the democratic candidate was clearly under-qualified (I want to say that she was an idiot, but that might be construed as being insulting—though whether it would be insulting to her or to idiots I still haven’t decided). In the end, although I wanted the incumbent out of office, I didn’t mind that she probably won (it’s still not official). She may not be who I want representing me, but at least she isn’t going to be embarrassing.

As for the national results, I’m not at all disappointed. Historically, if the executive branch and both houses of Congress are of the same party, bad things happen for the country. Our founders were smart, they built a system based on the proposition that humans are corruptible once they have a taste for power, and the government they constructed pretty much requires conflict.

People bemoan the fact that there is gridlock within Congress (if the two houses are of different parties) or between Congress and the executive branch (if Congress and the President are of different parties), but the gridlock was intentional. It forces debate and compromise because every member of Congress wants to get their own pet bills passed into law.

I think the past six years have amply demonstrated why same-party politics is bad. Only one interest is being tended. I’m not saying that if the party in power were democrats instead of republicans that it would have been any different (how do you think the republicans got control of both houses of Congress to begin with).

My relief also rests with the fact that we might get a little bit of a respite from the neo-fascism that has slowly crept into the national psyche (though it’s not called that). This is where corporate and other moneyed parties have undue influence on how things are run. If it isn’t about profit and/or power, then it’s considered to be bad. That sort of thinking led to the disastrous turns in Italy and Germany prior to WWII (is Iraq our Spanish civil war?). Not that I want the pendulum to swing the other way into rampant socialism, but a balance would be good.

For the next two years, for the most part, I think we’ll start seeing that balance. The democrats will want to play relatively nice in order to bolster their hopes of winning the presidential race in 2008, as well as consolidating their hold on Congress. If, as I said, at least one house of Congress is different from whoever wins the presidency, I think that balance will continue…if not, then there will be more mischief afoot.

So, what will this new Congress do? What will the president do in the face of this new setback? Well, I think the number of vetoes the president issues will swell. With funding for the war, contractor and oil company subsidies, veteran’s benefits, social programs, minimum wage, confirmations, and more, there will be many places where the two branches of government will be at cross-purposes. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. As I said, it forces debate and compromise—just like it’s supposed to.