So, it’s disappointing, but that’s politics. During Bush’s presidency, the Republicans had defied historical custom by gaining ground in the House and Senate (the party in power in the White House always tends to lose ground in the legislative branch). Now there’s been a signficant slippage back towards the way things usually are. The odds can only be defied for so long. Nevertheless, there are certainly some reasons why it happened now, beyond just the “six-year itch,” and everyone will be debating them.

A friend and a New Yorker who had been optimistic that the Republicans would keep the House says this in relation to 2008:

Haven’t heard it mentioned yet, but I think tonight was a good night for Rudy.

Allen’s no longer viable, Romney’s successor got smoked, and the base
will never get behind McCain.

To my chagrin, we’re a centrist national electorate and if he can ward
off the slime that’s inevitably coming his way I think the presidency
is Rudy’s.

That’s a persuasive nutshell analysis … but it doesn’t quite persuade me. I don’t think it would be wise to draw conclusions about the 2008 presidential race from the results of this mid-term — though of-course many people will and it will affect the candidates (and I like Giuliani but he has a real mountain to climb). As for the electorate having proved itself “centrist,” well, I disagree. The term would need to be defined, which I don’t have time for — but I think by most people’s definition the majority of the American electorate remains conservative. They simply didn’t have a satisfactory conservative option to vote for this time around, in their perception. It also amazed me the degree to which the Republican congress started running away from Bush almost immediately after the big 2004 win. If the Republicans generally had shown more unity and principle over the last two years, I think yesterday’s results would have been quite different.

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