Gone with November

9/11/06

By: Gerardo Enrique Garibay Camarena

On November 7, American people voted to elect a new House of Representatives, plus 33 Senators and 36 Governors.  To the time that I write this article, CNN reports that the democrats have achieved a big victory, winning 6 new Governors, 6 new Senators and 28 new representatives, which gives them control of the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

This has been a really successful election for the democrats, who regain the control of the legislative power, in republican hands since 1994 voting, when Bill Clinton worked in the oval office. The Democratic Party has played the “Hyena Politic”, which consists in get advantage of all your enemy’s mistakes and make a political platform out of them, maybe is not ethical, but has proved to be very effective.

Besides, republicans made their rivals’ work even easier by mishandle congressman Foley’s sexual scandal and failing in keep the popularity of the war in Irak. All this, along with the anger of certain parts of the American society about the march of the economy, were the ingredients for the cocktail of the announced republican defeat.

On their side of the field, democrats were lucky that John Kerry’s bizarre statement about students and Irak didn’t have a big effect in the society’s feelings. Truth be told, nearly every democrat thinks (let’s say “think” so to speak) as Kerry, but they are smart enough to keep that kind of thoughts to themselves, and they’ve managed to deceive the voters.

Other aspect to take into account is the cynical use of cheap pity, let’s analyze for example the cases of Tammy Duckworth, chosen by the democrats to be their candidate, not because her skills o experience, but because she lost her legs in Irak, o, a few months ago, the “Just four Moms From New Jersey”, a group of 9/11 widows who used their personal losses to satisfy their vanity, get publicity, and, at the same time, criticize Bush administration.

Regarding the “hispanic vote”, we observed a great recovery of Democratic Party’s strength, passing from 53% (in 2004) to an overwhelming 69% in this election, while immigration wasn’t a key issue, but, according to CNN’s exit poll, the less a person cares about the subject, the more that votes democratic.

At this time there’s a lot of people celebrating democrat’s victory and giving nearly as a fact the republican defeat in 2008 presidential elections, but let us avoid the rush, because in 1996 Bill Clinton was easily reelected, despite the sweeping Republican triumph of 1994. Nevertheless is time for the republicans to make an honest exercise of self-criticism, to correct the mistakes and prepare a new, fresh proposal, good enough to keep the control of the White House. That’s the big test for the Republican Party’s leaders, and they have the strength to succeed