The post mortem begins

The Washington Post sets the MSM tone for reporting on the election:

Democrats recaptured the House last night, defeating Republican incumbents in every region of the country, and were close to gaining control of the Senate in midterm elections dominated by war, scandal and President Bush's leadership.

By early this morning, Democrats had picked up more than two dozen Republican-held House seats without losing any of their own, putting Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) into position to become the nation's first female speaker.

[Snip]

The upheaval in the House and the changing balance in the Senate signaled a dramatic power shift in Washington that will alter the final two years of Bush's presidency, with resurgent Democrats expected to challenge the administration on its domestic priorities and the Iraq war.

The media line is going to be that the public rejected not just the war in Iraq or the leadership of President Bush but conservatism in general.

Don't believe any of it. The fact is that Bush was able to close much of the gap in the polls by aggressively defending the war in the weeks leading up to the election. If we had seen this aggressive, confrontational Bush in the past 2 years much of the trouble Republicans had on election day would have been avoided.

The prescriptions for how to fix the GOP are already being written. Patrick over at Born Again Redneck has decided that the Republican Party needs to purge out all the religious and social conservatives and go forward as a liberal/libertarian party in the pattern of Rudolph Giuliani.

Sorry but that is a recipe for disaster. The fact is that despite some early reports that turnout was heavy with an edge going to Republicans the end results showed that turnout was about average with an edge going to Democrats. Republican turnout was suppressed to some degree.

The question is why. Why? Was it that the republican public was disgusted with the degree to which the religious right has gained control of the Republican Party? Then why did all of those ballot measures supported by the religious right pass with wide margins? And why are leaders in the religious right angry at how little they have actually gotten from the Republican majority?

The GOP took a beating yesterday for a number of reasons none of which alone would have been enough but acting together they guaranteed its defeat. For one thing the President's "new tone" in which he attempted to bring civility back to Washington failed miserably. Democrats weren't having any of it and the Bush's refusal to go on the attack amounted to unilateral disarmament in the face of a heavily armed and aggressive enemy. It may be an unpleasant reality, but it is reality nonetheless, that Bill Clinton was correct in his "perpetual campaign" mode. The campaign never ends and future presidents, if they wish to be successful, need to learn that.

Another reason that Republicans lost is that they let down the people who voted for them. They ran for office as conservatives and they governed in all too many ways as liberals. Instead of making government smaller they grew it even more than Bill Clinton had. Instead of making government less expensive they spent money like Ted Kennedy in a liquor store. And, perhaps most importantly, they let the voters down on the issue of immigration and border security. Instead of kicking out the illegals who are already here and closing our southern border to unlawful crossing they only narrowly defeated an amnesty measure. They did vote to build a border fence, but then decided not to fund it.

The fact is that Republicans deserved to lose because they failed to live up to the expectations of the conservatives who elected them. If the Republican Party wishes to regain power in two years it needs to learn that lesson and apply it aggressively.