An Election Message

The message, as the entire political punditry has explained, is that the president has been repudiated. And while his party certainly lost, whether or not Mr. Obama has been scorned by the electorate falls firmly outside the purview of what was learned during yesterday’s contest. The message? As far as the GOP is concerned: Don’t nominate Palin in 2012.

That the Democrats would lose seats has been roundly apparent for months. Given the way elections work, however, it also stood to reason that they’d win (not pick-up, but win) a handful as well. The task for pollsters, pundits and amateur handicappers alike was to determine where the wins and losses would fall. There were, needless to say, some surprises, and these surprises were instructive.

Nevada plodded into the midterms with the nation’s highest unemployment and foreclosure rates. Its Senator in question had helped set the course for one of the least popular legislatures in the country’s history. And, yet, when the dust settled, Mr. Reid emerged sitting atop a decisive five-point victory.

Alaska found itself in the throes of an orchestrated and hotly-fanned electoral chaos. Write-in candidates, court cases and a host of basic geographical challenges spelled turmoil from the very beginning. It did not, however, definitively suggest that Miller would lose—which he now appears set to do—and handsomely so.

Colorado, Delaware, and the New York gubernatorial race handed the GOP somewhat less-surprising, but still interesting defeats. The common thread holding these—and the races just mentioned—together is obvious. The GOP came up short in winnable blue-territory. And, it would seem, this thread was sown by the same seamstress throughout: the Tea Party.

Both in terms of ideology and enthusiasm, I recognize the merits of the Tea Party (a longer post on this to come either later this week or this weekend). I am not a Tea Partier, as such, but I do understand that the movement is not without value. As November 2 made all too apparent, however, the Tea Party is often times an un-generally-electable beast.

You will have to win—or come close to winning—the Tea Party to win the 2012 GOP nomination. If all you win is the Tea Party, though, you won’t stand a shot in the general election.