Election

I'm sure you've all heard and seen the rather amusing comments from all sides regarding Tuesday's results: the irrational exuberance from the left, the hysteric outrage from the right.

Surprising though it may seem, the truth is this: no fundamental change has taken place. American politics is a colossal pendulum: one party, having taken power, loses little time in using that power to make a fool of itself and, in short order, watch the opposition seize power and make the same mistakes. Look at the election in 1992 - and then its shocking reversal in 1994, look at 2004 and then at 2006: in both cases it took only two years for the American electorate to completely change its collective mind.

Speaking of the 1992 election, what did Bill Clinton and the then-democratic congress memorably accomplish? For all their hype about "It's the economy, stupid" and universal health care (funny how things so consistently repeat themselves) did they really accomplish anything - to either end? No. They just made fool of themselves until Gingrich unseated them in 1994.

The way I see it, there are two ways the next few years can go, two different likely scenarios. In the first, Barack Obama and the leftists currently in congress will prove us on the right to be correct: they will stumble and fumble with all their grandiose promises, they will attempt to bring about redistribution of wealth, they will double taxes, and they will do all the other things some conservatives so ominously predict. They will, in other words, make absolute fools of themselves. In this case, they will be badly beaten in 2010 and, barring some devilish reincarnation of Ross Perot (and assuming we don't run another Bob Dole) a Republican will unseat Barack in 2012. In the second, he proves us all wrong: he unites the country, leads reasonably, and finds solutions to the "failed policies of the past eight years" that a great majority of Americans will find agreeable. In this scenario, we don't win the next two elections, but we effectively win this one - still ending up with a good president and effective congress. In either case, we're fine in the long run. At this point, then, we should give Barack Hussein Obama a chance to prove himself either way. Stop threatening to move to Canada and stop, for a moment, saying the entire country is "going to hell in a handbasket" as one friend of mine so pessimistically put it - and give him a fair chance to either lead well or destroy his own party. Use this time to refine our message and rethink our arguments on the major issues so that our candidates are as effective as possible in the upcoming elections. Get Bobby Jindal's name out there as an up-and-coming leader. Recognize, above all, that public opinion is just about the most transient thing in the world and that, before long, the pendulum may be moving fast the other way.



That is, unless this guy proves to just be a moderately bad president. That would cause the real problems.