2006 Election Wrapup

It's the Friday after Election Day 2006; and since I've finally caught up on my sleep, it seemed the right time to bid adieu to one of the more contentious campaign seasons in recent memory.

As the most casual reader of these pages will quickly discover, I'm a committed Republican, and therefore I've been fielding many questions from family and friends in the past couple of days, queries which more or less can be lumped together as "So, how are you holding up?" My answer, my honest answer, is "fine." It's not like the results were a shock (though you always seem to see some weeping old matron at one of those televised concession-speech parties who just can't believe everyone failed to change their minds at the last minute), and it's not like the current Congress ranks up there in my all-time favorites.

Anyway, a few thoughts before I go completely off-track:

Ned Lamont I had a bit of respect for the guy insofar as I deeply understand the appeal of stirring things up, of being the hornet's nest that scares off the guy with the stick. But at the end of the day, he simply had nothing to offer the people of Connecticut save platitudes. And those of you outside the Nutmeg State, take note of this point: perhaps you were really, really rooting for him, but you probably don't know a damn thing about our state and what it needs. The abandoned GOP candidate in this race, Alan Schlesinger, scored some points (too few!) with the electorate by noting that Lamont was courting the approval of a lot of out-of-staters (Al Sharpton, to name just one) instead of focusing on the people here in CT.

I pity Lamont. He tried to tap into a political current that appeared frothing on the surface, but which simply failed to propel his ship once he sunk his keel into it. There are some interesting statistics at OpenSecrets.com: Lieberman got 86% of his contributions from individuals, while Lamont only managed to get 22% of his funding from the rank-and-file. Instead, he spent $10 million of his own money in a race that was lost to him three months ago. Apparently it's not enough to be angry and rich, and there's something comforting about that.

I saw you in an early-morning interview with local TV--you were tired, but more than that you were broken. I think your pain will diminish if you spend some time considering why you lost.

Alan Schlesinger Man, clean out the skeletons in your closet and stay on the straight and narrow. You impressed me in the debates, especially with the conviction that came from your caution-to-the-wind approach. I hope we'll see you again, but stay out of the casinos, OK?

Joe Lieberman In the waning days of the campaign, I yelled at one of your telephone pollsters who told me she was "impartial." Lots of those in the GOP voted for you, and I hope to God you don't let us down now that the Democrats are set to Murthify Iraq.

Chris Shays You're not inspiring, but you've proven yourself to be the kind of Republican people from both parties can get behind. Your district was described in the national media as a "Republican stronghold" (probably largely because of your continued presence in office), but let's remember that this is an area that went heavily for Kerry in 2004. A neighbor of mine, a lifelong Democrat, put it best when he said (and I paraphrase, just a bit) "I like Diane Farrell a lot, but her problem is that Chris Shays isn't a dick."

Diane Farrell You share a name with my aunt, but this is not enough to hold my attention any longer. You're now a two-time loser, and do you think that you're going to get a better shot than you had in '06? I mean, massive national backlash against the GOP (and especially against those, such as Shays, who are chummy with Bush), a negative ad campaign financed by your own campaign as nasty as anything I've seen, and...you score with only 48% of the voters--the same percentage you polled in your 2004 run. It's time for you to fade away.

It's clearly too early to tell where the policies of the federal government may be headed, but I'm not entirely pessimistic. The Democrats have a lot to shoulder--having been returned to power, a lot of their base will demand a quick end to the war, higher taxes on the rich, the abolition of No Child Left Behind, etc. They will clearly not be able to achieve these goals in any kind of speedy or complete way, but they'll have to convince the public they're trying. It's a tough row to hoe, given that the Dem's victories are not on the scale of the "Contract With America" class's historic 1994 romp. But it should make for interesting politics.

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