The National Review attempts to make sense of the exit polls, surely a Quixotic task. If you ask voters what is the most important issue to them, then ask which candidate is most likely to solve the issue, you don't get answers that predict the election results.
I think the problem is that there's a big difference between the issues people say are important to them and the issues about which they support a specific solution. The economy and joblessness are on everyone's mind, but hardly anyone has a coherent notion of what either a President or a Congress can or should do about them. People may say that abortion or immigration are less important, but at least they have concrete ideas about how a politician should vote on those subjects. I suspect a lot of votes were cast as a result of gut feelings about issues that people claimed were low on their list of priorities.
That makes it hard to discern a real mandate. Not that the newly elected politicians will have any difficulty claiming one, but the 2016 mid-term elections could surprise everyone again if the politicians think the voters have their backs.
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The thing is, the election is most naturally read as a mandate to keep going like we are. Almost everyone was returned to office. The balance of power was unchanged. The most obvious reading is that voters are satisfied with the course we're on, and want more of it.
Which is sadly not true, because that is of course just what they're going to get.
I hope we make it to the 2014 mid-terms without something really bad happening. Getting there, and firing Harry Reid as Majority Leader and keeping Republicans in control of the House is the only way to mitigate what Obama is in the process of doing to the country. It is a stop-gap to get us to 2016 and, I pray to God, someone who will steer the Ship of State back towards the Constitution...
Those who voted on other than economic issues are going to be rethinking that position when those guts are empty. 2014 will be a barn burner if the Elephant Party understands that it's a long war and acts accordingly.
"I hope we make it to the 2014 mid-terms without something really bad happening."
Plan for the worst.
Pray for the best.
Amen, bthun...
Then there's the 1+ million fradulent votes in every city the Dems control.
More important than it seems when states go over by 100k votes alone.
Blacks in America have been suffering poverty and slavery under Dem control for the past 60 years. Have they figured out where their prosperity lies?
The point is, a slave doesn't get a choice, even if he has figured out what's going on, here on this here plantation.
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