Figuring Out What Happened

It’s a tough day when the political party that opposes your political ideals gains 15 seats in the House, 5 in the Senate, and takes the White House by a solid electoral margin.  In the end, I had to come to this conclusion:

Energy flows where attention goes.  This election was never about John McCain.  The entire time it was about Barack Obama.  About his pastor, his terrorist friends, his past, his votes, his “spread the wealth” themes.

In 2004, more people voted “against” Bush than they voted “for” Kerry.  In 2008, more people were “against” Obama than they were “for” McCain.

Now, I have no idea if that’s actually true statistically, but it certainly feels true.

Back in May, I had a feeling this was coming, particularly since conservatives never really had any candidate in the race.

The general election season hasn’t really started yet, but I see this becoming a trend:  Obama appearing stronger than McCain because he invented his message first, and McCain will just be reacting to him.

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All these conservative pundits are unhappy with McCain, but they never stood by anyone to beat him.  I’m talking about you, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.  Rush was too busy attacking Mike Huckabee to rally his 20 million listeners behind a candidate stronger than McCain, and Hannity backed another weak candidate (Giuliani).

Conservatives should have embraced someone like Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney months ago, stood by him, tauted conservative principles, and forced Obama to prove he can do better.

In retrospect, McCain wasn’t as horrible as a candidate as I thought he’d be.  He’s a Republican running in a Democratic year, 8 years into an unpopular Republican Presidential administration, against a guy who somehow beat Hillary Clinton.

Where Conservatives Go From Here

Any “reinvention” that takes place needs to bring the Republican party back to the right.  Last night should stand as evidence that you don’t win elections against pure liberals with a moderate who can appeal to independent voters.

As Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan noted last night, you just take your timeless principles and apply them to today.

We’ll still be Pro-life.  We’ll still be for low taxes.  We’ll still be for a strong, dominant military.  We’ll still be for competition in education.  We’ll still be for building rockets to Mars.

Well, I will be, anyway.

These things seem to happen in cycles, and look what happened four years after Jimmy Carter won the Presidency.  We don’t know what will happen.

What we do have to look out for are the RINOs and phoney conservatives that think political moderatism is the way to win.  Republicans lost a Senate seat in New Hampshire last night;  incumbent John Sununu had apparently tried to go moderate.

Our First “Black” President

Blah blah blah, history and what not.  America was just ready for a black President;  the fact that Obama could even become a candidate like he was was when history was already made.  The two top Democratic candidates this year were a white woman and a half-black man; the VP candidate for the Republicans was a woman.  This whole election seems to have opened things up.

Hopefully it doesn’t matter anymore.

Racism is still alive, on both sides.  I’m sure plenty of whites didn’t vote for Obama because he’s half-black, but conservative blacks were denounced as traitors and Uncle Toms by supporting John McCain.  I dislike Barack Obama for his policies and his questionable past; believe me, I wish a young, history-making charismatic Bears fan could be the candidate for me.  Alas.

The world was certainly pleased.  Going to European Websites like the Times Online had all-American coverage of the night; so much so that it was like looking at an American newspaper.

So while everyone on the left was celebrating last night, I had to write on my Facebook status that it was a “dark day” in American history.  Al Franken was leading in his bid for the U.S. Senate – ugh.  For the first time I’ve really been politically aware, I have a President who I disagree with on almost every issue.  And he has a Democratic Congress to get his liberal agenda going.

And then I realized one last thing, as if all of that weren’t enough:

Vice President-elect Joe Biden.