Quenching The Accountability Thirst
Until yesterday, I felt a bit like the Manhattan socialite who expressed shock after the Nixon-McGovern contest by saying "But no one I know voted for Nixon!"
No one I know was voting for Obama I'd thought, until I learned that all my aunt's kids were (my cousins), and that my a co-worker who'd always voted Republican had now switched parties.
I guess I can see how if the pro-life issue isn't crucial for you, you might be tempted to switch. The Republicans are known for being the gold standard on foreign policy and yet there was Colin Powell, offering the U.N. what turned out to be false intelligence. No matter how one feels about the Iraq War, there were undeniably mistakes and the American people are very unforgiving with mistakes.
I think the reason is frustration over the lack of accountability in Washington which is related partially to unrealistic expectations of federal government. We are upset when a war isn't run smoothly. We are dismayed when the feds don't have a natural disaster recovery plan in the event of Katrina. That Bush could be held responsible for the irresponsbility of state and local government seems proof of our skewed view of things.
Adding to that, we return incumbent congress members with Politburo-like regularity. But it's not all our fault because the members have rigged the system by gerrymandering very safe districts. But even Mayor Nagin got re-elected in New Orleans. "Fire the President!" overlooking our corrupt local congressman. It reminds me of how some were blaming the Pope for the priest sex abuse scandal while coddling their own pedophiliac pastor.
If you'll recall back in '93 & '94, Bill Clinton wasn't yet poll-driven. He didn't worry too much about his popularity, much as Bush hasn't. This was all before Dick Morris came on the scene. Clinton was leading for good or for ill, as George Bush has done, for good or ill. Clinton's made what he has since acknowledged to be a mistake, in designing a health care system (dubbed "Hillarycare") that went far beyond what the nation was ready for. It created, needless to say, a huge backlash.
Americans punished his (& her) mistake by electing the first Republican congress in something like fifty years. The Democrats were so used to owning the House that they hadn't even bothered to gerrymander ridiculously safe seats, so they were vulnerable even though they didn't know it. Bill Clinton was chastised to the point of having to say, "The era of big government is over" (proving that he's no prophet).
But the point of this is that there is a frustration in the electorate such that it uses a hammer when it needs a scalpel. We use a bomb when a scissors would do. A co-worker is voting against the party of Bush this time because he wanted to send a message against Bush. Well that message was received loud & clear in 2006 when the Congress flipped. Hasn't accountability for Bush's failure to attend to his own popularity been received yet?
Part of this angst is that people expect way too much of the federal government. It's a huge, inefficient, bureaucratic institution that almost by definition can't be held accountable except in the most generalized and unfair ways. The best way to make government accountable is to produced mixed government since Republicans have proven that they can't run the congress while owning the presidency. And Democrats have proven the same. And yet, in this election, we appear to have not learned that lesson.
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