By Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post:
For the GOP, Senate control could be a doubled-edged sword
Quote:
Republicans are susceptible to the myth of the midterm mandate. Midterm elections generally express unhappiness, not aspiration. But some conservatives took the 2010 result as an ideological turning point. They concluded that Obama’s 2008 victory was an anomaly — that the country, deep down, was really on the Republican side.
It was a false dawn. As a weakened president celebrated a decisive reelection, a few things should have been clear: At the presidential level, the GOP brand is offensive to many rising demographic groups. Republicans are often perceived as indifferent to working-class struggles (because they sometimes are). The GOP appeal seems designed for a vanishing electorate.
The problem that the 2010 election was that it planted the seeds for the Tea Party, which has exerted an inordinate amount of influence on the Republican Party, and pushed them ideologically rightward, which made the House Republicans an unruly bunch that rejected normal compromise. And we're still dealing with that national headache.
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