teapartysamurai
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- Mar 27, 2010
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Let's try to put some metrics on last Tuesday's historic election. Two years ago, the popular vote for House of Representatives was 54 percent Democratic and 43 percent Republican. That may sound close, but in historic perspective it's a landslide. Democrats didn't win the House popular vote in the South, as they did from the 1870s up through 1992. But they won a larger percentage in the 36 non-Southern states than -- well, as far as I can tell, than ever before.
Republicans snatched control of about 20 legislative houses from Democrats -- and by margins that hardly any political insiders expected. Republicans needed five seats for a majority in the Pennsylvania House and won 15; they needed four seats in the Ohio House and got 13; they needed 13 in the Michigan House and got 20; they needed two in the Wisconsin Senate and four in the Wisconsin House, and gained four and 14; they needed five in the North Carolina Senate and nine in the North Carolina House and gained 11 and 15.
All those gains are hugely significant in redistricting. When the 2010 Census results are announced next month, the 435 House seats will be reapportioned to the states, and state officials will draw new district lines in each state. Nonpartisan commissions authorized by voters this year will do the job in (Democratic) California and (Republican) Florida, but in most states it's up to legislators and governors (although North Carolina's governor cannot veto redistricting bills).
When the tea party movement first made itself heard, Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed it as "Astroturf," a phony organization financed by a few millionaires. She may have been projecting -- those union demonstrators you see at Democratic events or heckling Republicans are often paid by the hour.
In any case, the depth and the breadth of Republican victories in state legislative races, even more than their gain of 60-plus seats in the U.S. House and six seats in the Senate, shows that the tea party movement was a genuine popular upheaval of vast dimensions. Particularly in traditional blue-collar areas, voters rejected longtime Democrats or abandoned lifelong partisan allegiances and elected Republicans.
This will make a difference not just in redistricting. State governments face budget crunches and are supposed to act to help roll out Obamacare. Republican legislatures can cut spending and block the rollout.
"I won," Barack Obama told Republican leaders seeking concessions last year. This year, he didn't.
RealClearPolitics - The Depth & Breadth of GOP Victories
Two years ago, that's what Obama said, "I won." Now, just like in 1994, and 2001, the Democrats talk "compromise" when they certainly don't talk compromise when they are in complete power.
Hopefully, the GOP have learned the lessons of '94 and 2001. If not, they will be thrown on the ash heap of history, with the others like the Whig party that thought "compromise" was the solution.