Did They Win or Lose?

So the election results are out. "Unofficially", Democrats took a majority of the Senate and the House, Bush seems to have taken a beating, and Mr. Rove was no where to be found. Rumsfield resigned from the Pentagon, and the people's voice was heard. It wasn't a landslide, many of these races are within just hundreds to thousands of votes with each other. As one NPR broadcaster put it "They weren't necessarily voting for Democrats, they were making sure that they were not voting for Republicans". (I would credit him if I knew his name...)

I understand that, I voted against Kerry more than I voted for Bush. I have my share of issues with Bush, but it was far outweighed by my thoughts on Kerry. Since I try to keep my language fairly clean here, I won't go into any of that.

Some good definitely came after the vote, but I'm not sure if it was attributable to the vote itself. Rumsfield has been on the chopping block for months, and his head was finally swiped off. But that was in process before the election. This is amazingly good, I hope. I hope that Robert Gates will have the kind of strong voice we need in the leadership of our military, however that is yet to be seen.

What is also yet to be seen is whether or not pushing so hard for Democrat control was the best thing the Democrats could have done at this point. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think that they might have just lost. For the next two years, with a Democrat controlled Congress, they are accomplices to the Bush administration. They don't have enough of a majority to really pass things on their own, and they will have to be very concilliatory with Bush and the Senate/House Minority to get anything passed. They don't have enough stopping power to override a presidential veto, and the Republicans can still filibuster a vote because the Democrats don't have enough seats to force a vote on any measure without at least a few Republicans supporting it. So in order for her things to really happen, they may have to be watered down versions.

From the 2004 Predential elections forward, the only thing we have really heard from Democrats is "We need to do something different. We need a new plan. Vote for us!" Not once did Kerry propose a better plan, just that we needed one. It is now 2006 and still you have not heard any coherent plan for what needs to be done, still just the same "We need a new plan, vote for us cause the old way isn't working!" Pelosi has promised quite a few feats in the first 100 hours of Congress, but promises aren't much without a path to get there. And if the Republicans don't like the plan, I'm sure they can stall each of those promises a nice amount of time, making her break her promises.

When it gets to be 2008, and still we haven't seen anyone from the Democratic side do backflips, are people going to say, "Look we gave you a chance in '06, now you want us to give you the presidency as well? At least we know where the Republicans stand" If they don't get anything done, it will be worse for them than if they lost. Then at least they could say, "Told you so." As a weak majority they may be digging their own grave.

Still though, I have my fingers crossed, maybe them being weak will make them think, and maybe this has shaken the President enough to make him want to work with them to find new avenues of approach. My biggest hope is that Robert Gates will be wise enough to really and truly begin cleaning up Iraq.