Which Way Now, America?

There’s much good news from the elections, but first let me wet blanket some of the fires of enthusiasm. Republican majority or Democrat, it remains the case that so long as the Dept of Health and Human Services, the EPA, the Federal Reserve, and the like still exist the Federal government will continue to do great harm. That will still be true even if a better-than-Reagan Republican wins in 2012.

Now, for the election analysis — including lots of good news from the events of Nov. 2.

There’s no doubt the American electorate in many, many places rejected the Obama-Pelosi-Reid anti-Constitutional approach to government, i.e. Progressivism.

That’s clear, even though the Republican pickup in the Senate was disappointing, especially with the re-election of Harry Reid. Take a look at Republican gains in the State legislatures: 650-700 seats, compared to 505 in 1994. That’s huge.

There’s bad news to be sure.

Boxer won, and by a surprisingly comfortable margin. Polls can still be wildly wrong, apparently. Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi coasted to easy wins, Moonbeam Brown became Governor of California again. State legislators there are their younger clones. All that seals that state’s fate. It will be at least 25 years before the once-Golden State recovers, if ever, no matter who is elected two, four, or six years from now.

Worse still, the majority of voters in Nevada betrayed their fellow citizens by re-electing Harry Reid, who will almost certainly remain Majority Leader. This is bad news far beyond the re-election of one of the six most dangerous Federal employees in the country. (Obama, Reid, Bernanke, EPA head Lisa Jackson, Sec. Sebelius, and any swing vote on the Supreme Court.)

The reason is simple: Reid can now tie up any pro-freedom legislation introduced in the House while Obama has Executive Branch bureaus ensnare the populace through administrative regulations. That means among other things that repeal of any part of ObamaCare will have to wait until 2013. Luckily, the major handouts don’t start until 2014, so there’s time.

Now to leaven our depression with a little more good news.

Russ Feingold got his pink slip. The prime author of legislation that violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech is now unemployed. He has been replaced by a very promising Republican.

The other author of that odious bill, John McCain, conned his way into a six-year reprieve by donning a new conservative suit. However, despite his desire to appear the maverick, McCain can often be relied on to go along with his Republican peers, especially on defense issues. Since Cap-and-Tax is essentially dead for the next two years at least, he can’t do any damage on that score. Better still, he had a close brush with unemployment and may be more cautious for a while.

In more good news, the loathsome Blanche Lincoln — she was a major driver of the ruinous Farm Bill and voted for ObamaCare — has been shown the door with a healthy boot (58% for Boozman v 37% for her) to assist her on her way. With so many nearby states turning Red too, maybe the south really is rising again.

Perhaps best of all, Marco Rubio tromped the opposition in Florida, a state where most voters normally have no idea who they are. Rubio is young, a relatively reliable pro-freedom voice, and he’s being touted as Vice Presidential material. He’s also Cuban-American. While discussions of ethnicity in politics are generally loathsome, it’s a clear indication that Hispanics won’t always vote Democrat.

There are some heartening results in the House races, too. Walt Minnick lost his Idaho seat by a 10% margin. Far from the worst Democrat around — he voted against ObamaCare — he still voted with his party 70% of the time. That’s interesting not so much because Raul Labrador is a Republican — Idaho is firmly a Red State and Minnick’s election a fluke — but because he was such a weak candidate with far inferior TV ads and still won.

All these disparate results offer a clear overall theme: with exceptions like the utterly hopeless Massachusetts, California, and New York, the majority of the American people are now saying they strongly favor fiscal conservatism and limited government — at least for now.

To keep them favoring it will require a continued educational campaign that demonstrates every day the rightness of those positions. Republicans could easily blow it. They have many times before. But there is beginning to build in the House (and to some extent in the Senate) a consensus around Madison’s view of government.

If we help stiffen Congressional spines daily, America has a good chance to gain needed breathing room from the 50-year-long onslaught of Progressivism in government. (Even Reagan had to deal with a Congress that tilted left much of the time.)

Into that gap can slip the cultural changes that are essential to keeping the political momentum going.

That means educating the American people about why every piece of Progressive legislation has harmed them, including Social Security and Medicare — the immoral, impractical, and unconstitutional twin programs that are bankrupting the country.

It means teaching citizens why the Constitution is not just a bunch of rules of thumb. Though the Supreme Court shouldn’t be, they’re heavily influenced by the tone of Congress and public sentiment. If the people believe more firmly in the Constitution, SCOTUS will uphold it more consistently.

It means re-creating a country that broke all the precedents set by the 2,000 years before its founding to become the freest, most innovative, most prosperous, and most moral society in history.

It’s now up to the American people to decide the future they desire. The odds of them choosing wisely, and their chances of success, have just improved by an order of magnitude.