The morning reading about politics is all about the realization that America, despite complaining about the inefficiency of a divided legislative branch and a president constrained by a House controlled by the other party, voted for just the same again for the next two years. We like the president well enough, or didn’t like the other guy enough. But we don’t want him to be able to do anything he says he wants to do. So we elect congressmen to constrain him. That’s funny. Ad yet we have been complaining about just this kind of government for the last two years.
I hope you all like John Boehner. I do. He is in an unenviable position right now. Conservatives must look to him to hold the line on so many issues, especially taxation, and yet politics in Washington will go beyond the pressure on him and Republicans in Congress to compromise. The pressure will be all about capitulation. Here’s something for the president to consider, that Bill Clinton is well remembered as president because he did compromise with a strong Republican Congress.
Then I read Peggy Noonan, who is demanding a big “rethink” of Republican policies, ideas and attitudes after complaining for a few paragraphs that Romney didn’t run on ideas and policies. What she does best here is sum up post-election confusion. In that sense, she exemplifies much of the Right. I prefer what Pete said , “How Republicans win over growing constituencies while keeping their limited government commitments is going to be harder. ”
The talk about the effect of Hurricane Sandy is apropos here. I’ll be interested to see how voting patterns worked in early voting states like mine. Elections are a snapshot of politics in time. But political scientists ought to be able to track how people voted over most of the month of October between heavy absentee voting and early voting. I sensed a shift in attitude during and after Hurricane Sandy. We might be able to see if that is true. Am I right?
