Oh, What a Night

One question that may go misanswered in the Republicans fall from grace (with both the the loss of Congress and Rumsfeld "resignation") is "How did this happen?

Conventional wisdom would blame people with fancy political titles, but those who subscribe to this reasoning have and will continue to underestimate the power of the Frustrated Voter. The FV is tired of the war in Iraq and tired of being afraid of terrorist bogeymen. The FV is confused that religious leaders don't practice what they've preached. The FV is upset that the President considers services jobs like working at McDonald's to be indistinguishable from say, working at Merrill Lynch. The FV is painstaking that the victims of Hurricane Katrina are still crying for help. The FV is pissed that on one hand the Republicans decried immigrants as taking American jobs, but than refused to raise the wages of Americans who are working those jobs.

And there's so much more, too much to list here. I personally think is started with "reforming" Social Security, built steam with Terry Schaivo and Katrina, and came to a head with Mark Foley. Iraq certaintly had an impact, but the social problems with this country made it hard for President Bush and the Republicans to hide from the constant images of the dead and the wounded.

I'm also surprised at the surprise from the political pundits: aren't these consultants paid to put their finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing? What were they doing for the last three weeks?

President Bush has so far offered be bipartisan. He has no real choice because he's ticked off a good number of his own base. The good news is that maybe we'll finally get a reasonable solution to some of our more "bread and butter" issues. But this forced shift will reveal a lot about Bush's true character as an American President, not just the leader of the Republican neocons. Sooner or later the media will pick up on the biggest secret he's kept since he came from office: Bush is more politically motivated and poll-driven than he lets on.

There can be no doubts that the results are in, and those results say that Americans don't want a one-party government anymore. What remains to be seen is if a two-party government care fare better than it has in the recent past.