NYC Letter: The Boo Hoo HOO Elections

Many friends, acquaintances, and correspondents have been in a funk about the recent midterm elections. We have not.

Winning and losing are necessary outcomes in real elections. The best person doesn't always win, but the worst person -- with the notable exception of Ted "I'll Drive" Kennedy -- does not win endlessly. We believe the Republican rout was salutary. Here's why:

1. Better to lose now than 2008.
The Republicans have gotten fat and happy again. They banjaxed their majority advantages playing patty-cake -- not hardball -- with a Democrat minority. Better they sober up now, than go into the 2008 presidential election with nothing more than pleading to be re-/elected.

2. Two-party politics is not bipartisan.
Whenever the word "bipartisan" is uttered by a Republican, Ted Kennedy earns a drink. Two-party politics is oppositional. It is a contest of ideas. It is combat. It is not bipartisan, not conciliatory, not a guitar mass where all sway to Kumbaya. When a politician pledges himself to bipartisanship, he is announcing his ideas are weak or that he has no ideas at all. The Republican Party, late of the Party of Ideas, is now the Bipartisan Party. The Democrats applaud them and go about ignoring them.

3. You cannot beat the opposition by running with the opposition.
A Republican Congress is the reason the American public is confused about Iraq. The Democrats sought and succeeded in spooking the public with horror stories of endless war, quaqmires, broken nails and inflamed cuticles. The Republicans caved. Instead of rallying behind Mr. Bush, many ran away from him. Given the media coverage of the war, if the choice is between vacillating Republicans and unified Democrats, well, who can blame the public for voting Democrat.

4. The Democrats did not win a mandate.
Midterm elections historically attrite the party in power. The Democratic gains were not extraordinary (6 governorships, a 6-seat Senate swing, and a 31-seat House swing) for a midterm election. They certainly didn't match the Republican gains (12 governorships, an 8-seat Senate -- plus 2 subsequent Democratic cross-overs -- swing, and a 54-seat House swing) in the 1994 midterm elections.

5. The Democrats did not win with ideas.
The Democrats had a message: CHANGE. Now what? There is not a single person -- not Democrat, not Republican, not talking head -- that has any idea what the promised change will be. So what can the Democrats accomplish in the two years they have before the next general election? Reinstate the draft? Oh-ho, there's a winner! Will they force a withdrawal from Iraq? No. Democrats have no single plan or strategy or clue about Iraq. Their big idea was to simply oppose the president. Come November 2008 America will still be in Iraq and the Democrats will have to explain the unchange. Social security reform? Universal healthcare? Medicare/Medicaid reform? Other than the scary byzantine Hillarycare, the Democrats have never tackled anything tough, in or out of power. Their solutions are all of a kind: Spend more money. Which is to say their solutions are one with the problem.

6. The Republicans won important races.
The TV pundits talked endlessly about the Congressional races. The important races were the governorships. The governor races are about providing a friendly hustings for the governor's presidential candidate -- and electoral vote honeypots. Republicans won in Florida (27 electoral votes) and Texas (34) and California (55). The losses in New York (31), Massachusetts (12), and Maryland (10) are nugatory as these states allow the deceased, the underaged, the unborn, pets and farm animals, and inanimate objects to vote Democratic in general elections. The only important governor race Republicans lost was in Ohio (20).

Finally, liberals are graceless losers, but they are even more graceless winners.

DEVITO GETS TIRED AND EMOTIONAL

NEW YORK December 1, 2006 (Guardian) - The film star walked shakily on to the set of the daytime chatshow The View on Wednesday, visibly under the influence despite the fact that it was only 11am. He put it down to an all-night bender with George Clooney, fuelled by copious amounts of an Italian lemon liqueur.

"I knew it was the last seven limoncellos that was going to get me," he said. As soon as DeVito sat down his host, Rosie O'Donnell, sensed something was up. "Have you been to sleep yet?" she asked. "I don't know," he replied.

Then he launched into a rant about George Bush, complaining he hadn't been invited to stay at the White House. ABC bleeped out DeVito's description of Mr Bush, but the New York Post lip-read it as "numb nuts".

The actor went on to portray the president as a monkey, a dribbling oaf and as one of the Three Stooges, and baited him over the Democrats' recent electoral victory. "What about that hat trick last week! Rumsfeld, the House and the Senate - ta-da! I took my clothes off."

This gloat will keep liberals fat and happy going into 2008 still bleating, "CHANGE!" Let's hope the opposition party has sobered up by then.