Election Results Do Not Mean Any Politician Has a Mandate
As those of you that read my posts here on Technorati already know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan conservative. I don’t hide that fact, and I am proud of my beliefs and value system.
Despite that strong belief, I have ventured away from the Republican Party since 2008 for various reasons. More than anything, I’ve done so because I believe the party system is failing the very people it purports to help. The Congress and most politicians seem to have forgotten they are representatives of the people, not special interests.
All that said, the Republicans cleaned up in last week’s election. It was the largest win for Republicans in the House and in local races since 1928. That seems like a big deal –- and in many ways it is -– but they shouldn’t view it as a mandate of any sort. It’s not a mandate for either one of the parties. Instead, it’s the way Americans have told the entire system that they’re angry and they want change.
I believe Republicans, and some of my conservative brothers and sisters, are taking this “win” much more as validation than they should. This was not as much about Americans picking one party over the other as it was Americans firing people who aren’t doing anything. A lack of understanding of the problems facing people in our nation today is what caused the upheaval in the 2010 elections. As much as I’d like to believe it was an outright rejection of the Obama administration and its policies, it’s a reach to say that. Is there a loose correlation? Perhaps there is. But to claim that is intellectually dishonest or just naïve at best.
The pundits on the major cable news networks from the left and right both want to place blame or take credit for the way we all voted last week. That’s just posturing and entertainment. The real reason is we’re all sick and tired of elected people who forget that we’re their boss. The labor union boss or oil company executive is not their boss; the hardworking blue-collar worker is, as is the educated professional in debt from paying off an over-priced college education.
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