Last night’s election was fun to watch. There’s no other way to put it. Even though I still think the Republicans have no cojones and will probably screw this up, it was still amazing to see all of the left-wing butthurt last night. I watched MSNBC for the longest period of time ever, and it was simply amazing. The two most gleeful moments were when they called WI-GOV for Scott Walker and immediately cut to Ed Schultz, who looked like he wanted to kill someone; and when they called NC-SEN for Thom Tillis, making it official that the Republicans would have control of the Senate for the next two years. Rachel Maddow looked like she was going to cry; Chris Matthews looked like he was in a drunken stupor and would be really angry when he figured out what was going on; and Al Sharpton had this special look of fear like he thought he would be a slave by next week. It was purely amazing. As I said on Monday, I had absolutely NOTHING to be excited about going into this election, but it was wonderful to see the left in such misery. This truly was the schadenfreude election for me, as I made perfectly clear on Twitter.
I will admit a bit of early Eeyore-ish attitude on my part; it seemed like the FL-GOV race was going poorly, NC-SEN awfully, and then the Ace of Spades Decision Desk called the VA-SEN race much too quickly for things to go well. It was the relatively early call of VA-SEN that got my inner Eeyore going. But as the night unfolded, and polls closed, it became more and more obvious that this was truly a wave Republican election. There’s no other way to put it—this was truly a Republican wave. Was it a conservative wave? No. But it was a Republican wave, and even a crappy Republican beats the hell out of any Democrat.
Honestly, there were a few good, solid conservatives elected last night to be excited about. Tom Cotton will make an excellent Senator from Arkansas. I’ve heard good things about Joni Ernst (although her laugh is horribly annoying). I like some of what I’ve heard from Cory Gardner out of Colorado. All in all, what is really important for the next two (and six) years is for us as conservatives to hold their feet to the fire. It is the grassroots that will stop amnesty. It is the grassroots that will push the Republicans to use their real power, that of the budget, to stop the Obama agenda. It is the grassroots that will hold all of these new Republican Senators accountable. We must work to influence them, before the lobbyists can.
Honestly, the thing that surprised me and excited me the most last night (especially watching MSNBC having to call the races) was three Governor’s races that the Republicans won. Who would have thought that Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland would all have Republican Governors? I never would have guessed that to even be possible. But here, in 2014, that has become reality. I can’t speak to Massachusetts and Illinois (although just knowing Illinois I would expect federal indictments to be handed down against somebody shortly), but Maryland was a fascinating race to watch from the DC media market. I saw the campaign ads from both Democrat Anthony Brown and Republican Larry Hogan, and the campaign took a very strange tone from the beginning. Hogan was just trying to introduce himself to voters, laying out his simple, tax cutting message; but immediately after winning his primary Brown turned negative against Hogan. It was bizarre to see in such a blue state, where Brown should have been able to coast to victory. Brown failed to unite and turnout the Democrats after his primary, and even as a black Democrat in Maryland with support from Barack Obama he just couldn’t turn out enough of his base. Hogan, on the other hand, ran a very positive race, focusing on the issues and pushing a truly fiscally conservative message. His focus throughout the campaign was on the tax increases that have happened in Maryland and his promises to work to repeal as many as possible. That clearly resonated with voters, and he was rewarded with a fairly sizeable victory (for a Republican in Maryland) last night.
There were some big winners and some big losers last night, other than the obvious “Republicans win, Democrats lose.” The big winners:
- Scott Walker. He’s won 3 statewide elections in 4 years now, and he’s done it by running and governing as a conservative. If he’s not on your 2016 short list, he should be (he’s #3 on mine).
- Rand Paul. Yes, this sounds strange considering he wasn’t on the ballot and there weren’t many true liberty-minded candidates on the ballot either, but his success in tying Hillary Clinton to all of the Democrat candidates that Hillary campaigned for was brilliant.
- The Entire State of Florida. Seriously. You just narrowly escaped having Charlie Crist as your governor again.
- Mitch McConnell. I’m sure he’ll enjoy that nice new office.
The big losers:
- Hillary Clinton. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Of the candidates that she stumped for, lost. Hillary may not carry the political might she once did. I still don’t think she can run for President in 2016.
- The War On Women. The Democrats’ War on Women meme may have finally died last night (at least we can hope so), as its standard-bearers were all defeated. Sen. Mark “Uterus” Udall in Colorado, who ran on almost nothing but #WarOnWomen, was defeated by Cory Gardner, who supports over-the-counter birth control. Michelle Nunn, Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kay Hagan, and Wendy Davis were all defeated, and all except Hagan by double-digit margins. Meanwhile, Republicans elected Ernst, Shelley Moore Capito, Lindsey Graham, and Mia Love, all strong women who will help to defuse that asinine “War on Women” meme that the left has been pushing.
- Barack Obama. Make no mistake about it. This election was a referendum on the Obama agenda. He even said so himself. He was soundly defeated.
- The Pollsters. None of the pollsters were even close to predicting the races accurately. On average they missed the most competitive Senate races by 6 points. That is on the verge of being criminally deceitful. There needs to be a shakeup in the polling industry, because they clearly were either simply wrong; incompetent; or trying to use the polls to shape the election by making it look less Republican than it really was. Regardless, they were so bad that UVa’s Larry Sabato wants an investigation into the pollsters because they were just completely wrong.
So yes, last night was fun. A LOT of fun. But now the work begins. We’re not starting with a slate of brand new Freshman Tea Party Senators like we were in 2010; instead, we’re starting with a Republican Majority that will need a lot of whipping by we the people to keep them in line. So grab your whips—it’s time to hold those Republicans accountable.
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