There are many reasons given for Democrats taking the House, the Senate and winning statewide and local offices from coast to coast. Most put the blame on the head of George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. But there are other reasons:
The GOP bleating to round up, arrest and deport Mexican Lawn Boys moved the Hispanics from a previous vote for Democrats from 60% to 70%.
The failure of the Bush Administration to deal effectively with Hurricane Katrina, causing Black voters to move even further into the Democrats’ pocket.
In Missouri the Senate was lost to the GOP’s puritan stand on stem cell research (Rush Limbaugh’s clown act contributed to the loss).
Lobbyist corruption surrounding Tom DeLay in the Abramoff Affair.
Republicans covering up the homosexual emails of Congressman Mark Foley.
The Rev. Ted Haggerty showing us the hypocrisy inherent in fundamentalist religion.
The progression of younger voters becoming a larger voting bloc. Our kids may be shallow, spoiled and self centered, but they are not the intolerant bigots the GOP has tried to train them to be.
Or? Will history lose track of the single issues and see this election as a turning point. A movement back to normalcy from a generation lost to religious intolerance, a boisterous callous disregard for the least of us, and the indifference which allowed it to happen?
I wish to be an optimist, but sadly, They know how best to push the buttons of religion, patriotism, ethnicity, race and hate to win elections. They have been around since They first clubbed Their first woman over the head to get laid, and They aint going anywhere anytime soon. It’s the Nature of The Beast.
One thing is sure though, there was a geographical change. Much like after LBJ muscled through big Civil Rights bills of 1964 and 1965, he said the Democrats were now dead in The South. A similar dynamic played out last November. Across the nation moderate Republicans lost seats at a higher rate than did the wingnuts. The Mountain West and the Midwest rejected the religious intolerance, lack of international diplomacy and economic abandonment they have suffered from the GOP for the past 12 years. Leaving once again the concentration of ignorance, intolerance, prejudice and religious fervor where it has always so happily resided, the Confederate States.