Election is a Wake-Up Call for Republicans
Commentary by Phil Valentine  / November 4, 1998

While the pundits spouted off about huge gains for the Republicans I had predicted a net gain in the U.S. Senate for the Republicans of one. As of this writing it looks like they picked up nothing. I had predicted a net Republican gain in the House of maybe three or four if they were lucky. It looks like the Democrats are the ones picking up a handful of seats, much to the surprise of me and everyone else. What does this mean? Does it mean that Americans want the mean old Republicans to leave poor Bill Clinton alone? Not at all. Exit polling shows that most Americans want the President to be punished. Then why didn't the GOP pick up all those seats Speaker Newt was bragging about just a few weeks ago? There are several key reasons, most of which have little or nothing to do with the President.

First of all, most people who went to the polls felt good about their own financial situation. Most felt the country was on the right track. When people feel that way they tend to not want to rock the boat. Forget that the President had little or nothing to do with it. Most voters don't care. All they care about is letting the good times roll so they vote accordingly. Secondly, as the old saying goes, politics is local. Most of the races hinged on local issues as diverse as hog farm pollution in North Carolina and gambling in Alabama. A timid Republican candidate in California breaking out his last minute secret weapon, his mother defending him in TV ads, didn't help either. On the flip side, a Democratic candidate in Illinois who was perceived by many as crooked can blame no one but herself for the loss of her senate seat.

But there's an underlying problem that is much more troublesome for the Republicans. The reason the incumbent party in the White House has lost seats in every mid-term election in the last 64 years is because the party out of power has been able to demonstrate how they're different. Although they got off to a blazing start in 1995 the Republicans have been hard pressed as of late to show where they're different. Most recently during the budget debates they blew a golden opportunity to do just that. There were fundamental differences. The Democrats wanted to dictate to the states how to spend their own money on education. The Republicans wanted to block grant the money back to the states and give local school systems control over their own money, savings millions of dollars in bureaucratic red tape. Instead of articulating that position they allowed President Clinton and the Democrats to frame the argument and paint them as the anti-education party. It was a point not lost on the voters as they went to the polls seeing as how education was second on their list of concerns behind keeping the good economy going.

The Republicans were hammered once again on the Social Security issue by refusing to tell the American people the truth. They so wanted to claim credit for a balanced budget, the accolades for which were quickly stolen by the Democrats, that they neglected to mention that when you take Social Security revenues out of the equation we actually have a $30 billion deficit this year! They failed to point out that the President's plan to take your federal income tax dollars to feed this hungry beast amounts to DOUBLE TAXATION for Social Security.

Have the Republicans failed miserably as the majority party? No. We have welfare reform which the President vetoed repeatedly until they prevailed. We are getting closer to balancing the budget than we ever would have gotten had the Democrats stayed in power. We've begun to see the balance of power between the states and the federal government begin to shift back toward the states. Before, it was on a runaway course away from the states. But the Republican Revolution has lost a lot of steam. One need look no further than the recent embarrassment of the Transportation bill and the Omnibus Budget bill which passed recently to see that Republicans are just as adept at funneling pork back to their states and districts as the Democrats.

This time around the Republicans forgot who brought them to the dance. When the voters said they wanted change four years ago they screamed it at the top of their lungs. The conservatives cheered from the sidelines as the new champions took the field. After a couple of exciting scores they watched the team fumble, bumble and throw interception after interception. The coaching staff cried promises of 'next year.' Next year we'll cut taxes! Next year we'll privatize Social Security! The impatient fans didn't want to hear it. This time the conservatives decided not to buy a ticket to the game.