SeleucusNicator
Diadoch
Republicans win Kentucky, Mississippi Governorships.
This makes for three gubernatorial election victories for the GOP this year, with California being the first. Municipal elections aside, this makes the Republicans virtually undefeated in high-profile elections this year.
Some will point out the 2001 elections. Right after 9/11, the Democrats won two governorships from the Republicans. However, those were largely focused on local issues. You could argue that the big Democratic victory in 2002, the near-sweep of Illinois, was based on local issues. Oddly enough, so are all of the Senate seats that the Democrats may win in 2004. So was California, but today's elections were not. National issues were strongly touched upon and the President made visits to campaign for the Republican candidates.
I think we are seeing a similar pattern to 2002, with the Presidential campaigning and all. If Bush has coattails this on an off-off year, what kind of ultramagnetic power will he have in 2004 when he is running the best funded re-election campaign in United States history?
After 1932 the Republicans still had the Supreme Court. After 1972 the Democrats still had both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. After 1984 the Democrats still had the House, a majority of governorships, and a lot of state legislators.
For the 2004 election, the Democratic Party has absolutely nothing to defend except a large and loud minority in the Senate and the Supreme Court, and we are seeing signs that it will be a very, very, very Republican-friendly year.
Off the top of my head, I can only find two precedents for this kind of political obliteration. One would be the Republicans after 1932 and 1936. They recaptured Congress 14 years later, and if you cut off their control of the Supreme Court as ending in about 1936, they were completely out of power about 10 years. What was the result? A coalition that completely reshaped American social policy and, when mature a few years later, elected steady Democratic majorities in the Congress for decades.
The other, more distant, more liberal, yet still oddly familiar comparison I can make?
The Whigs in the late 1840's and 1850's. Losing local elections except where they seized on local issues or local Democratic divisons, shut out of Congress by Democratic gerymandering, harmed by Democratic rewrites of state constitutions, they floundered in national elections and struggled to win votes in the South.
With nothing to defend in 1852, they went into the presidential election after a primary that featured old moderates from the party's past, a wacky liberal guy that liked to point out how things were done in his home state, and an experienced general with a suspect political past and a lack of tact.
The result? The Whigs were gone as a national party within four years.
This makes for three gubernatorial election victories for the GOP this year, with California being the first. Municipal elections aside, this makes the Republicans virtually undefeated in high-profile elections this year.
Some will point out the 2001 elections. Right after 9/11, the Democrats won two governorships from the Republicans. However, those were largely focused on local issues. You could argue that the big Democratic victory in 2002, the near-sweep of Illinois, was based on local issues. Oddly enough, so are all of the Senate seats that the Democrats may win in 2004. So was California, but today's elections were not. National issues were strongly touched upon and the President made visits to campaign for the Republican candidates.
I think we are seeing a similar pattern to 2002, with the Presidential campaigning and all. If Bush has coattails this on an off-off year, what kind of ultramagnetic power will he have in 2004 when he is running the best funded re-election campaign in United States history?
After 1932 the Republicans still had the Supreme Court. After 1972 the Democrats still had both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. After 1984 the Democrats still had the House, a majority of governorships, and a lot of state legislators.
For the 2004 election, the Democratic Party has absolutely nothing to defend except a large and loud minority in the Senate and the Supreme Court, and we are seeing signs that it will be a very, very, very Republican-friendly year.
Off the top of my head, I can only find two precedents for this kind of political obliteration. One would be the Republicans after 1932 and 1936. They recaptured Congress 14 years later, and if you cut off their control of the Supreme Court as ending in about 1936, they were completely out of power about 10 years. What was the result? A coalition that completely reshaped American social policy and, when mature a few years later, elected steady Democratic majorities in the Congress for decades.
The other, more distant, more liberal, yet still oddly familiar comparison I can make?
The Whigs in the late 1840's and 1850's. Losing local elections except where they seized on local issues or local Democratic divisons, shut out of Congress by Democratic gerymandering, harmed by Democratic rewrites of state constitutions, they floundered in national elections and struggled to win votes in the South.
With nothing to defend in 1852, they went into the presidential election after a primary that featured old moderates from the party's past, a wacky liberal guy that liked to point out how things were done in his home state, and an experienced general with a suspect political past and a lack of tact.
The result? The Whigs were gone as a national party within four years.
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