Galloping Towards The Center

The Democrats have won control of the House, and as of right now, it looks like the Senate as well. On the other hand, they won several of their races with Republican-lite candidates such as James Webb (if Webb does indeed pull it out), and as Glenn Reynolds writes, “Huh. Pro-war Lieberman — targeted by antiwar types on that issue — wins. Chafee — who was much more anti-war — loses”. So you can’t quite call it back to September 10th. And in individual states, some very conservative bills have passed as well.

Always the optimist, Hugh Hewitt looks at the good news for Republicans in today’s results:

Hillary’s path back to the White House is much more difficult with her party in the majority in the House, and much much more difficult if the Senate falls to Harry Reid’s command as well. Clarity as to her party’s fecklessness will be back within the first six months, and the GOP frontrunners –Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney– do not have to serve in the almost certain to be paralyzed Senate.

The Beltway-Manhattan media elite is now stuck “covering” Democratic majorities. Sure, they will go easy on them, but it is much more difficult to cover for a majority than a minority.

And it is a wonderful day for new media, especially talk radio. For two years we have had to defend the Congressional gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Now we get to play offense.

I am concerned for the country that the Democrats have won, but the Republicans are indeed going to find this sojourn in the minority a potentially very good thing.

If the GOP adopts and refines the tactics the Democrats have used for the past four years all will be well two years hence, and perhaps even better than well.

Just as long as they don’t adopt their tone.

Last year at this time, Jonah Goldberg preciently wrote:

Behold: We have entered the Age When Dinos and Rinos Rule the Earth. See them battle each other for absolute dominion!

Though this might sound like a cool monster mash of the “Mechagodzilla versus Godzilla” variety, it’s a good deal less exciting and more depressing, like a taste test between 2% milk and soy milk. What we are witnessing is the dawn of the boring phase of the Great Republican Realignment, and it promises to have liberals and conservatives alike going bonkers.

I should back up. Dinos, of course, are “Democrats in Name Only.” Rinos are their GOP counterparts. Nobody actually ever admits to being a Republican in name only. Rather, these are epithets used to describe politicians of insufficient ideological purity or partisan backbone. Think David Gergen without the smoldering sexual intensity. Or, if you can’t, think moderates, squishes, apostates, New York Times-pleasing “mavericks,” centrists, and all the others who want to “get beyond labels” or get a standing ovation from the Brookings Institution.

Galloping toward the center is nothing new in American politics. The parties have always regressed to the mean. The center of gravity is in the, uh, center. What’s changed is that the center has