Reflections on the sweeping Democratic losses nationwide

On a recent episode of South Park, we were introduced to Captain Hindsight, the superhero that can fly into perilous situations and valiantly tell everyone what they could have done in order to prevent the disaster in question. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always had an affinity for using metaphors as a not so subtle message as to what this culture is at the moment. In lead-up to these elections, it seems that most liberals were a bunch of “Captain Hindsight’s.”

Be it the economy or the BP oil disaster, the Democratic Party and the punditry on the left spent a lot of time the last two years reminding everybody that the current state of affairs was all Bush’s fault. While they are absolutely right in this respect, at some point, they needed to realize that the American people could care less about the past transgressions of a failed administration along with an adjoining party whose future was uncertain and actually do something.

Instead, a few days before the election, President Obama and Vice President Biden were constantly saying, essentially, that if you vote Republican, the policies from two to three years ago would resume and make everything much worse than it already is. Again, a valid point; but statements similar to this only left the Democrats open to a rather concerning question and one they could have easily responded to. That question being: “Yeah? Well, what have you done Mr. ‘Change I Can Believe In’?” Aside from passing a resemblance of healthcare reform, ending the war in Iraq and preventing another depression, not much. At least, not much to the unemployed and disenchanted voters in districts that barely voted for McCain in the election two years ago.

When you get around the furious activism as well as the unintentional humor of the Tea Party, you get to the heart of the independent voters concerns: jobs are being lost and Washington hasn’t done enough to change it. They don’t care if Bush caused all this mess. They will gladly vote Republican again if they believe that they can create jobs and stabilize the economy. Whether or not that is true or not is to be seen.

Personally, to foresee a cooperative Congress this coming January and the two years onward is to see Santa, the Easter bunny and all four Teletubbies smoking cigars and playing poker in my living room. Looking back at the chaos of the last two years helps us to imagine the Congressional congestion that is to come.  Republicans were steadfastly stubborn and the Democrats were so easily self-defeating in reaching out to them last term. Sure, nice words have been said by the Democratic and Republican leadership since the conclusion of the election. But, bear in mind that a kind word from a politician about another is like a kind word from a stripper. The words may be or sound nice, but should never, ever be taken at face value.

The failure of the Democratic Party this election was the failure to control the debate about the state of the economy. If they had made this an election of what they had done and will do rather than what they had prevented and are trying to stop, we may be facing a different future than the one put into motion this past Tuesday. But then again, as the cliché reads, hindsight is always 20/20.