Random Observations on the Midterms

Wanting to blog but needing to educate, we will confine ourselves to a disorganized bullet list of observations, unencumbered by helpful hyperlinks to relevant stories:

• This reminds us more of 1992 than 1994. Democrats will have difficulty claiming much of a mandate because they didn't run on much, a la Clinton. It's more of a repudiation of The Republicans Who Make Life Hard than an affirmation of anything in particular.
• Democrats who think that they have a mandate against the war should look closely to Lieberman's trouncing of Lamont. What voters want, short of a miracle, is better management of Iraq, not an unconditional withdrawal.
• Those most political on the Religious Right are also the least likely to help their candidates. Blackwell got beat like a fresh egg, thanks to alienating most independents and many Republicans with his too-friendly association with Reformation Ohio, a Christian group so out there that even our SWNIDish self was repulsed, though not enough to support the clueless Strickland. Yet today, we heard Russell Johnson, renegade Campbellite and co-organizer of the Gang that Shot Its Own Candidate, saying that as a Christian, he was used to crucifixions on Friday but knows that there's a resurrection on Sunday. Sorry, Russell, but much as we want to see everything in life as cruciform, in our book you just blasphemed.
• In some, both parties need to continue to move to the middle. If they don't, they'll lose.
• Strickland will have a tough time governing with two chambers of the legislature still in the control of the Rs. But Rs won't rule entirely, as they won't be able to override a Strickland veto without a few Ds on their side, and there's no chance of that. So expect either sensible compromise or absolutely nothing from Columbus.
• "Mallory" is still a magic name in Our Fair City. Despite his every misstep over the last six months, Dale Mallory carried two-thirds of his Ohio House race against Kim Hale.
• Indiana took two more steps toward becoming the New Jersey of the Midwest. First, it sent three more Ds to the House (we knew it was over in the House when Chocola lost Indiana-2 early). Second, Ohioans preserved the income of all the tour bus operators and gave the Rising Sun Grand Victoria Casino a new lease on life by voting down slots. That establishes it as a Democrat stronghold and firms it up as a gaming haven for nearby states. Add that it's become a bedroom state for Cincinnati (compare Philly) and Chicago (compare NYC) and that it has a big stretch of smelly industry on the lake, and you've got Newer Jersey.
• Ohioans have voted stagflation (high unemployment and high inflation, for those too young to remember the 1970s) into their state constitution. Issue 3 will not only raise the minimum wage in Ohio by over 30% this year, but it will raise it for inflation every year thereafter. I can't think of a better way to take us back to the Nixon-Ford-Carter bleakness except to nationalize this, which seems to be what the Ds in Congress might do. For those who think it appropriate that low-wage workers be guaranteed by law what no one else is guaranteed, we note that the law does not forbid the elimination of low wage jobs as the wages push higher, making the jobs pay more than they're worth to the employer.
• Steve Chabot's victory and Phil Heimlich's defeat show that Cincinnati likes their conservatives nice. Jean Schmidt doesn't prove the opposite. She proves that Cincinnati likes their representatives conservative. Had the Ds run a moderate like Cranley in Ohio 2, they'd have one more Congressman.
• By voting against the jail tax and the slot parlors, Hamilton County proved that it doesn't do everything that Si Leis says.
• 2008 will be fought in the middle. The Republican standard bearer will be one of three moderates: Giuliani, McCain or Romney. The Democrat will be Hillary. Both sides will stress moderation, competence, problem-solving and values. Appeals to religion will be largely off limits, as each side will concede the other's godliness (and thoughtful people of faith will dismiss the likelihood that either side is genuinely godly). For those who insist on an overtly and purely Christian candidate, the alternatives will be to stay home or vote for a fringe party loser, thereby casting half a vote for the greater of two evils.
• It's less likely that Rumsfeld will retire than if the Rs had carried at least one chamber. Bush won't want to look like he's caving to pressure or abandoning his buddy. Too bad.
• We wish Benny06 well in his new job in the Strickland administration as Undersecretary for Business Unfriendliness.