Well the GOP swamped the Democrat's, even where the Democrats were reasonably conservative. And so-called independent voters were the reason for the strong GOP support.
What were the possible causes of such a loss of support in the ranks of the independents? It could be the weight of the GOP slander that Obama and his minions in Congress are incompetent, but I don't think that is the root cause. That just motivates the core GOP to get out and vote.
I think the there are two root causes. One is the inevitable disappointment that occurs in middle of a recovery from a credit induced recession. Income stagnation lasts for at least 5 to 10 years after such a burst in the best of times. Throw in globalization, which marches on without hinderance, and the perception that the U.S. could be like Japan, which has had stagnant incomes for 20 years, and you are left with an angry electorate that does not benefit from globalization. They blame Obama for not improving their situation.
The second root cause is the failure of Obama to find common ground with the GOP on any front. Now the GOP Congress may not have been willing to find any reasonable middle with Obama on any front, but by giving up and fighting the fight that hard left wanted fought, Obama basically abandoned conservative Democrats in conservative states. If you go through my history of this blog, you will find my skepticism that the GOP were willing to compromise preferring to ruin the Obama Presidency and slow down economic growth in the country in the process. This predominantly relates to infrastructure spending and immigration reform.
So, now the GOP has a decision to make. Compromise with the President or continue being obstructionist only. And the President has a decision to make, compromise with the Congress and make progress on something, or just let the market forces continue to reduce the budget deficit while income remains stagnant and the voters hate Washington for not doing something positive.
Remember this blog is named "Things Get Accomplished in the Middle".
A couple of thoughts... Obama enacted a $800 billion stimulus package that turned out to be a bust. Even he admitted that there were no "shovel ready" jobs. So Republicans should agree to more? On immigration reform, why would the Republicans agree to something that would create 10+ million new Democrat voters? There is no "middle ground" in either.
ReplyDelete