Mid-Term Election Thoughts

NOTE: This is long.

I’ve had some thoughts about this last mid-term election that we just experienced.  Doesn’t everybody?

In spite of what the President has tried to pass off as a poor showing of the electorate and that had there been more people voting this year that results would have been different, I beg to differ with him.  I believe that some very clear messages have been delivered and that he, as well as many of us, is overlooking a bigger picture.

Most of the attention this year has been focused on the Senate races across the country.  Everybody knows that Republicans needed to capture (and hold onto) six seats to gain control of the Senate.  That margin was easily achieved.  There are two “howevers” that need to be considered in the context of this election.  First, not every state was electing senators, which can account for much of the poor turnout.  Had every state been electing a senator there would have been a much higher turnout in this past election.  If the President is wise, he should consider the election results as a representative sample of the larger population had every state in the country been able to vote for a Senate seat.

The other bigger “however” though is what went on in the largely ignored House election.  The media spent so much time focusing on the Senate that they all but ignored the House.  Perhaps the media believed that since the House was already in the hands of the Republicans that they just assumed that it would continue to be so with no big changes.  You would expect that from a press that leans to the left.  It is like saying, “If you ignore it, it will go away.”  Well, it didn’t go away.  You see, Republicans soundly outdistanced Democrats in the House by adding more seats to the right than what they had before Tuesday.  Republicans now have well over 240 seats in the House while Democrats have only 175 (plus or minus).  “So what?” you ask.  Well, the House is often referred to as the “People’s Chamber” in Congress and if you now look at a red and blue House map of the United States following Tuesday’s election, you will see that the map is largely red.  There is not enough blue on the map to make any shade of purple.

Lots of exit polls were taken during this past election and in spite of what President Obama wants you to believe, this election was in fact about him.  The American public is tired of the failed policies.  No, the American public is angry over the failed policies.  And, the American public is angry over the direction that our nation is headed.  This election was a referendum on his job as president and on his agendas.  Is it any wonder that only a small handful of Democratic candidates for any office wanted Mr. Obama to endorse them?  Yet, Republican candidates were more than happy to have Mitt Romney show up on their doorstep.

It would be easy for some to say that the anger and discontent was stirred up by FOX News and that the money machine of the Koch brothers is responsible for what happened.  This is where we insert another “however” into the dialogue.  Such assertions overlooks the very biased CNN, MSNBC, and the other three major network news (or more appropriately defined as “opinion”) outlets.  It also disregards the nearly $75,000,000 donation to democrats from the Steyer family, or the $20,000,000 from Michael Bloomberg to democrats, or the $8,000,000 from Fred Eychaner of Newsweb Corp. to democrats.  Then, let us not overlook the $3,700,000 to democrats from George Soros.  The reality is that according to Forbes list of billionaires, of the 22 billionaires that contributed to political actions, 13 of them contributed to liberal candidates or candidates affiliated with the Democratic Party.  If you want to look at bottom dollars, consider then that the Democratic Party has successfully raised $1,152,389,442 (I’ll save you the trouble of counting digits—that is trillion) over the last 25 years compared to Republican $736,075,113 (IJReview).  Oh, and did I mention that the Koch Brothers rank Number 59 in the Big Donors to Political Parties category?  Unions gave a sweet $278 million to Democrats.  The Honorable Mr. Senator Harry Reid might want to reconsider calling the kettle black.

So, what does this all really mean?  Here are some thoughts.

1 – I think it would be appropriate for President Obama to pull out a city map of Washington, D.C. and calculate the distance between the White House and the Capitol Building.  If he is careful, he will notice that the distance is the same from the White House to the Capitol as it is from the Capitol to the White House.  Not only that, but it might be more energy efficient for him to make the trip to the Capitol than to have Congress marching to the White House.

2 – I think it would be incumbent upon the President to look at a map of the United States and see just how red that map really is.  If he wants to preserve the Oval Office for another Democrat, he would look long and hard at that map and disregard his notion that only a small percentage of the American public spoke on Tuesday and he best believe that America is angry over the direction she is going, his pick-and-choose method of what laws to enforce, his liberal use of his pen and telephone, and his unwillingness to go with the majority of the “People’s Chamber”.

3 – I believe he should abandon the “my way or the highway” approach to government.

4 – I believe he needs to come clean with all the scandals, even if it means impeachment.  Even I would be willing to delve into the mysteries.

5 – I believe he needs to assemble a summit on health care to scrap Obamacare and come up with something that will effectively replace it and that will not hurt people like me and many people I know and will be a benefit to those who want health care but who cannot afford it, all while not placing huge burdens on physicians, many of whom have left the practice because of Obamacare regulations. (Yes, that was a run-on sentence.)

6 – I believe he needs to break his fountain pen and let Congress fix immigration and then sign the bill with a borrowed pen.

7 – I believe he needs to work with Congress to develop a fair, simple, and equitable tax code.  Better yet, let Congress fill their constitutional duty to develop a fair, simple, and equitable tax code.

8 – I believe he had better build up our national defense and pay attention to his generals and admirals.

9 – If he knows what is good for him, he will abandon any action that will restrict the Second Amendment.

10 – And if he is really smart, he will start to work on restoring the honor of the First Amendment.

11 – I believe he needs to put tape over Michelle’s mouth and put her on a word diet.

12 – I believe he needs to say, “O.K., folks, Common Core isn’t making a whole lot of sense.  Let’s undo it before we permanently damage the brains of our children and their parents.”

Now, I want to save the best for last. 

To My Dear Republican and Conservative Congressmen/Congresswomen:

1 – Grow up.

2 – Don’t blow it.  The American public has spoken as of last Tuesday and they are putting their trust in you.  Don’t get a big head.  Americans don’t like you much more, if any more at all, than they do Mr. Obama.  The Oval Office is yours to take.  Don’t be stupid and try to put another Bush in the White House.  Don’t put somebody up for the White House that is so ultra conservative that you will scare away moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.

3 – Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America was a good thought that went awry.  Hold that thought and then act on it.  As part of that contract, p-l-e-a-s-e seal our borders and err on the safe side and deny legal entry into this country to any person that belongs to a party that would in any way want to restrict the freedoms that we so thanklessly enjoy.

4 – Take your cause to the American public and invite the American public to take their cause to you.

5 – Insist that the President work with you.  It does not have to be all about him.  It isn’t about him at all and it isn’t about you.  It is about us.  Americans.  We the People.  Spend a little less time in front of television cameras complaining and a little more time listening to the public and holed up in your offices and in committees and in your respective chambers finding synergistic solutions.